Enjoying New York City Over Christmas

By Author: Steve Robinson
Total Articles: 467
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While cheap travel deals including cheap airplane tickets, discount hotel rooms and cheap vacation packages are great ways to get to New York City and relax while there, taking a little advice from more experienced travelers can help you truly enjoy your stay there over the holidays.

The following are things you should do and avoid while in New York City during the Christmas season, according to the Lonely Planet:

• Do visit Rockefeller Center Plaza and take in the big Christmas tree that is home to 30,000 lights. It is well worth dealing with the crowds, particularly at night when the tree’s Christmas lights can fully be enjoyed. Do not try to skate on the ice rink there given how tiny it is, expensive, and lines that often take up to two hours to get ice time.

• Do check out FAO Schwartz and tap your feet on the giant floor piano keyboard in New York’s most famous toy store. Do not visit this store on weekends when lines can go around the block. Kids tend to love visiting the Times Square Toy R Us and its indoor Ferris Wheel.

• Do see Macy’s impressive “Santaland” which includes ...
... Christmas trees, elves, toy trains and snow filled wonder. Do not go on weekends or mid day any day. If you show up shortly before it opens (9 am during the week through Christmas Eve), waits tend to be around five minutes.

• Make a point of seeing a holiday show. St John the Divine’s Winter Solstice is very popular and tends to be secular. Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular is a show every kid should see with dozens of dancing Santas and the ever popular Rockettes a-leg-kicking.

• Do not miss holiday attractions going on in the other boroughs. Brooklyn’s BAM is going irreverent on the “Nutcracker” while the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx is one of the city’s best Christmas traditions.

• Do window shop. Boutiques and department stores throughout the city tend to be dressed up for the season. Do not limit yourself to hipster downtown. Midtown has much more to offer. Walk up Fifth Avenue from Rockefeller Center, to FAO, and then over to Madison to see the modern, funny displays of Barney’s on Madison Ave. and 62nd St.
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