New York is beautiful during the holidays. Despite the cold and the crowds our city’s holiday spirit is impressive to behold. It’s easy to get caught up in the zeitgeist of the yuletide season and commit to things that will bear more misery than joy, though. Here are some things you may want to avoid.
Rockefeller Center. The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center is beautiful, but there are better light displays available elsewhere in the city and the crowds make this part of Manhattan a maddening maze of slow-moving flesh that will make you want to murder swaths of clueless gawkers. Stroll down Sixth Avenue instead, where many of the buildings have outstanding holiday displays that people are not trampling one another to photograph.
Holiday Train show at the New York Botanical Garden. The Holiday Train Show at the New York Botanical Garden is worth seeing when the holidays are over. This year the show runs through January 21. But between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, you can pretty much forget about going. I’ve made the mistake of going with family to the train show between Christmas and New Year’s and it was a mob scene. Even showing up on time with a timed ticket means standing in roped-off holding pens and then being subjected to a pointless video to delay your entrance to the actual exhibit even farther. It was still wall-to-wall people and a constant struggle just to find space to stand to see things, chaperoning small children made it even more difficult—no strollers allowed.
SantaCon. The tragedy of SantaCon is that it was once a very cool, very enjoyable artistic event where people had fun and created a fun holiday spectacle that was spontaneous and authentic. That version died under a wave of obnoxious vomit-spewing yahoos years ago. The city dreads SantaCon more and more every year. It brings out the worst in our city’s young people, and gives holiday boozing a bad name. Hope is on the horizon though, as more thoughtful bar owners are organizing anti-SantaCon events.
Large department stores. The window displays of Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy’s are part of strong holiday traditions, and there is merit in paying homage to these landmarks, especially as so much of our holiday shopping is online and we are losing some of the human contact element of enjoying the holidays. But being penned in like cattle between velvet ropes is still being penned in like cattle. Add to that standing on line in the cold for a long time while engaged in a passive-aggressive jostle for space. No thanks.
Tourist-trap skating rinks. Rockefeller Center boasts a popular ice rink that will cost way more money than you would pay elsewhere. That extra money pays for the limited space, lower-quality ice and the satisfaction of falling on your ass in front of thousands of tourists. Bryant Park has a temporary winter village during the holidays that includes an ice rink. It appears to be less crowded than Rockefeller Center and Central Park’s Wollman Rink and worth investigating, but ultimately it’s a tourist trap. Instead, examine local ice rinks in the city such as World Ice Arena or the City Ice Pavilion in Queens or the Aviator Sports & Events Center in Brooklyn.
