North America, Travel Tips

It’s Christmas time in the City (Holiday fun in NYC)

December 11, 2015 • By

The madness begins in late October when New York City’s busy streets fill with tourists from across the globe who travel to the Big Apple for shopping and merriment. The holiday season officially kicks off with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in late November and ends when the ball drops at midnight on New Years Eve in Times Square. During this time, the city swells, ponds give way to ice skating rinks and Starbucks brews gingerbread and eggnog lattes served in seasonal red cups. It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

When I think of Bing Crosby’s cherished Christmas classic, Silver Bells, it conjures up the notion of pleasantness and kindness.  “City sidewalks, busy sidewalks. Dressed in holiday style. In the air there’s a feeling of Christmas (Children laughing, People passing, Meeting smile after smile) and on every street corner you’ll hear Silver bells, (Silver bells) Silver bells, (Silver bells). I never want to discount Bing but my take on the song differs greatly now that I have lived in New York City during the holidays. “People pushing, people shoving, dressed in concert grunge style. In the air there’s a feeling of Annoyance. (Tourists laughing, locals crying, Meeting because there is no place to move. And on every street corner you hear people swearing.

 

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Holiday windows

In spite of the crowds and the chaos, the holidays in New York City are a special time. The buildings beam with colors of orange and brown for Thanksgiving and turn quickly to red and green for Christmas and blue and silver for Hanukkah. Retailers decorate their windows with festive merchandise, while Bloomingdales, Saks and Macy’s showcase time-honored stories for people to enjoy. The top of the Empire State and the Helmsley building get into the action nightly when their boring facades give way to dazzling colorful lights and along 5th Avenue stars adorn lampposts and enormous red velvet bows literally wrap up storefronts. It’s a time for parties, family, friends and the anticipation of a New Year.

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The Radio City Christmas Spectacular with Santa and the Rockettes in NYC

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular® opens in Mid-November and the famous long legged Rockettes® strut their stuff with Santa a few times at day at Radio City Music Hall. Tschaikovsky’s iconic Nutcracker Ballet takes over Lincoln Center with nightly performances appropriate for adults and children and the streets of Times Square along Broadway jam with families making annual trips to the city to see a show. Santa’s helpers erect booths around Manhattan (Union Square, Central Park, Bryant Park, Grand Central Station) where locals and tourists can find handmade jewelry, clothing and other crafts making great gifts for every member of the family. Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, typically takes place in December.  This year New York City claims bragging rights for erecting the world’s largest Menorah, a sacred candelabrum with eight branches for the celebration in Brooklyn and Manhattan. For the first night, concerts were held to mark the lighting of the first candle.  Jews traditionally eat latkes or fried foods for Hanukkah to commemorate the miracle of the oil lasting eight days.  Why not taste test CBS New York’s favorites latkes?  My personal favorite is Veselka.

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The Tree Lighting at Rockefeller Center

There is something for everyone this time of year but the event that fills my heart with much joy and why I wish for everyone to visit New York City during Christmas is the lighting of the tree at Rockefeller Center Plaza. Traffic halts, nearly a million people line 5th Avenue and surrounding side streets and hundreds more hunker in offices overlooking the tree and millions of viewers tune into NBC and watch from home.

It could be the excitement of the holidays or maybe it’s that I am sentimental but the enormity of the tree, plucked strategically from a neighboring forest year after year represents more than Christmas. The tree is perfect in shape and always a vibrant healthy color of emerald green. It gives me hope and each time I visit the tree, which I must admit is as often as I can, I am impressed by the positivity it brings to everyone maneuvering for photos.

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Tree Lighting at Rockefeller Center, Kelly & Michelle NYC

I’ve been fortunate to attend the tree lighting four times: The first time with my mother, the second with my dear friend Kelly from Australia, the third with my mother and father and last week with my childhood best friend Michelle. Each experience is different just like the multi-colored lights wrapped so delicately around the tree’s branches. The occasion is magical and I will never forget the joy in my mother’s face, the twinkle in Kelly’s eyes during her first trip to New York City, the tears filling my dad’s eyes when the countdown started and the lights illuminated the entire area and the laughter on Michelle’s face when I realized we were stuck and would watch the tree lighting through a window. I blame the red wine.

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Tree Lighting at Rockefeller Center, best friends and wine in NYC

The Rockefeller Center tree stands proud and alive symbolizing love, sacrifice, courage and peace—it embodies the true meaning of Christmas and serves as a reminder for me to enjoy the holiday season and not get so wrapped up in buying presents. Whenever I have a visitor in town, I insist we brave the crowds and visit the tree together. Poor Kevin let me pose for photos, Annette and I celebrated our birthdays at the Sea Grill with a spectacular view and I am sure there will be others.

I highly recommend a visit to New York City during the cold of November and December. You may want to consider packing your patience but it’s worth the time and memories you will create on your trip.

Happy Holidays!

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Culture, History, North America

On the Road at Thanksgiving

November 26, 2015 • By

Every Thanksgiving holiday, media reports of crowded airports and busy highways consume the airwaves. Travelers are warned to arrive early, use caution and spend extra time moving from place to place.

It often reminds me of the Willie Nelson song, On the Road again.  His idea of going places “I’ve never been and seeing things that I have never seen” may differ for the approximately 46.9 million Americans who, according to AAA Travel, will train, plane or drive more than 50 miles from home during the 2015 Thanksgiving break. Regardless, it’s a holiday where Americans routinely brave the elements and the delays to be with family and friends for a feast of turkey, stuffing, potatoes (baked, mashed, or sweet), cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie and, in more modern times, televised NFL “football” games.

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Turkey napkins

In 2009, History.com published an account of the first Thanksgiving in the United States. The feast took place in 1621 when the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians shared a special meal to celebrate the end of the harvest. There is no real evidence the event occurred, and some historians argue that Virginia’s Berkeley Plantation celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1619. However, historians concur the colonists did give thanks for a healthy yield of corn and squash, and that the Native Americans and Pilgrims shared a feast at some point in the fall.

Colonist and author Edward Winslow wrote in 1621 of this shared meal:

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

The Pilgrims may not have chowed down on turkey in 1621 but they served up a hearty sampling of meat, complete with friendship, peace and togetherness. The colonies (and later, states) celebrated “Thanksgiving” over the years in varying degrees, and often at different times of the year.

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln finally succumbed to the pleas of Sarah Josepha Hale, a feminist and author of the Nursery Rhyme, Mary Had a Little Lamb, who fought the government for 20-30 years to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday.  Alas, a man can only take a woman’s complaining for so long, and Lincoln named the final Thursday in November to be celebrated as Thanksgiving Day. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, our notable New Deal architect, moved up the holiday by one week to entice shoppers during the Great Depression to hit the stores one week earlier. Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated the fourth Thursday of November.

Thanksgiving Day is my favorite holiday of the year… at least until someone recognizes December 16, my birthday, as a national day of celebration. There is more focus on friends and family–and less pressure on purchasing gifts. While there are the stresses of cooking (I would not know), it’s a day of eating, talking, watching TV, sitting by a fire, exercising, running the Turkey Trot, and relaxing.  It is not a religious day, but one where we can be proud of our shared history.

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Joyce’s brunch in Puerto Vallarta, Thanksgiving

Until I was 13 or so, my family enjoyed Thanksgiving with my Godparents and their two sons. They would visit us in Chicago (or Ohio, where we lived when I was younger) one year and we would travel to Kansas City, Missouri the next year. My parents, brother and I piled in the car on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving known as the busiest travel day of the year and hit I-70 from Akron, Ohio to KC and later I-55 from Chicago through St. Louis (the Arch) or I-80 from Chicago through Des Moines (the corn). The drive always seemed long and arduous, but once we arrived at my Godparents’, the festivities began, lasting until we had to return home on Sunday, when tears–mostly mine–flowed freely.

I loved visiting Kansas City for Thanksgiving. It was so much fun seeing my Godparents and trying like heck to win the attention of their sons, who I adored. As the only girl, I begged for the boys to include me but I often lost out to my brother, the entertainer. He was only 3-years-old and so certainly cuter than I.  We would watch television with the younger son and sometimes spied on the older. We became fans of the Kansas City Royals and the University of Kansas, because otherwise we surely would be outsiders (my brother would later attend KU).  I fought for years to be included in the annual Thanksgiving football game in the front yard.  On our very last visit to Kansas City for Thanksgiving, the boys and dads granted me immunity from the sidelines.  A few plays into the game, I fell and cried–and that was the end of that tradition. Turns out, I objected to playing on the cement all along.

My family always traveled long distances to be together. We loaded our cars and stood in the cold to watch the beautiful display of Christmas color take over the Plaza, the downtown shopping area in Chicago. We ate BBQ food, cooked meals, shopped the Plaza and shared our version of a Thanksgiving feast, including all the fixings and a pre-dinner blessing.

As we all grew older–kids, parents and grandparents alike–our Thanksgiving Day shifted from Kansas City to Michigan. Now we piled in the car and drove from Chicago to Flint to spend time with my grandparents on my dad’s side. It was important to my dad and special for my brother and me to be with our grandparents and aunts. On Thanksgiving Day, my dad, brother and I attended the Detroit Lions football game (I don’t think they won much back then either), and my grandmother Geraldine would cook up a feast with my dad’s favorite stuffing.

To this day, my dad nudges my mother to get it closer to “Geraldine’s recipe.” My mother answers with, “Michael, her stuffing was Stove Top.  Get over it.”

When I went away to Michigan State University, I welcomed spending Thanksgiving dinners at home in Chicago. I departed early after Wednesday classes and drove the reverse commute of my late teenage years down I-94 from East Lansing to Chicago. My mother, never one to prepare last minute, set the dining room table in advance of my arrival. My family greeted me joyfully.  Home is always welcoming.  Together, we cheered for our favorite football team, lounged in front of a blazing fire with bloated stomachs and settled in for our 100th viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol.

In more recent years, I’ve spent Thanksgiving holidays in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with my parents, celebrating with an early morning tennis match, margaritas and sunshine. Wherever I am, I insist on embracing the symbolism of the day. I spent 2004’s holiday in the Blue Mountains of Sydney, Australia, overeating; 2012, at the Taj Mahal with my friend Jill, feeling native; and last year, alone in Xi’an, China, doing what Americans do best: hitting the stores for Thanksgiving Day sales. These holidays were special, too–just different.

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Loving the Taj

This year, I am observing the fall harvest in Puerto Vallarta with my parents and aunt (mom’s sister). It’s not a traditional Thanksgiving per se, but it has all the trimmings of a perfect holiday.

Today, my dad, aunt and I exercised early before devouring a carefully planned Thanksgiving brunch prepared by my mom, who whipped up her special French Toast recipe, along with bacon and eggs. Suitably stuffed, with the Hallmark channel calling, we overindulged on Christmas classics and fairytale endings all afternoon. Tonight, we will gobble up turkey and all the fixings at Daiquiri Dicks Restaurant with the other traveling Americans.

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Thanksgiving with my parents and Aunt Jeanne

While it’s certainly too hot to build a fire in the fireplace, I am thankful for my family and friends, near and far. I am thankful for the special memories this day has created and I look forward to more celebrations in the years to come.

Save the diet for next week.  I surely will.

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Turkey time at Daiquiri Dicks Puerto Vallarta

To the Traveling Americans

On the Road Again by Willie Nelson

“On the road again –
Just can’t wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is making music with my friends

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
On the road again

Goin’ places that I’ve never been.
Seein’ things that I may never see again

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
On the road again –
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends.
Insisting that the world keep turning our way

And our way
is on the road again.
Just can’t wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is makin’ music with my friends

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
On the road again

Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends

Insisting that the world keep turning our way

And our way
is on the road again.
Just can’t wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is makin’ music with my friends

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
And I can’t wait to get on the road again.”