NEW YORK -- Other than my own living room, or my parents', there's no place quite like this bustling city of 8.2 million in which to celebrate the holidays. A destination for theater, fashion, art, and shoe shopping and eating, a trip to Manhattan never, ever, fails to excite.
It's especially magical this time of year when the giant tree goes up in Rockefeller Center and holiday markets and ice skating rinks pop up all over the city. Add the twinkling lights of Radio City Music Hall (this is the 85th year for its Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes, through Dec. 30), window shopping on Fifth Avenue for diamond jewelry you never in a million years could afford and the Christmas-y jangle of jingle bells on horse-drawn carriages in Central Park ($50 for 20 minutes), you can't help but get into the spirit of the season.
Superstorm Sandy threatened to put a damper on what's usually one of the city's busiest seasons, and indeed, some businesses are still closed for restoration in Lower Manhattan's southern tip, where sites such as the 9/11 Memorial and South Street Seaport helped draw a record 9.8 million visitors last year. For instance, both the Statue of Liberty National Monument -- whose crown was to reopen on Oct. 28 following a year of renovations -- and Ellis Island won't be ready for tours until next year, although you still can take a Circle Line boat tour of New York Harbor.
Yet as my family and I discovered on a long weekend there earlier this month, New Yorkers are nothing if not resilient. Most visitors will be hard-pressed to find anything amiss at the most popular holiday attractions and in fact can expect to fight huge crowds at sites such as Rockefeller Center, where we had to wait almost two days to get a ticket to the NBC Studio Tour. "Virtually all of the city's hotels, restaurants, attractions, cultural organizations and tours are back to normal," says Chris Heywood of NYC & CO., the city's official tourism bureau. "We anticipate a strong and healthy holiday season" with upward of 5 million visitors between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In other words, you're still not going to be able to score a ticket to "The Book of Mormon" at the Eugene O'Neill Theater.
Sightseeing: With only 2 1/2 days to cram in a week's worth of activities, we hit the ground running. Within an hour of checking into our hotel on Friday afternoon, we were noshing on spring rolls at Thai Son, my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. Then it was onto the top of the Empire State Building ($25;), where we drank in the bright lights of the city below -- the Manhattan skyline at night will have you humming Gershwin -- followed by a leisurely stroll to the bright lights of Times Square via Bryant Park between 40th and 42nd streets and Fifth and Sixth avenues, which this time of year is home to a festive holiday market with more than 100 boutique shops and food stalls. (Of course, we had to sample a pretzel roll slathered with Nutella and sliced banana.) Then it was on to Rockefeller Center to snap photos in front of its famous tree and watch people ice skate.
Unless you're an early bird (the rink opens at 7 a.m.), getting on the ice here means standing in a long line. It also ain't cheap: a 1 1/2-hour session limited to 150 skaters at a time; costs $25 for adults and $15 for kids under 12, plus $10 for skates; rates drop slightly on Jan. 8. Money no object? A $95 VIP option gets you immediately on the ice via a heated rinkside igloo and warms you up after with hot cocoa, candy canes and gourmet pastries. Other skating spots include midtown's Citi Pond at Bryant Park (noon to 10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and midnight Thursday through Saturday;), for free, no less -- although you'll pay $14 for skates and $9 for a lock on the free locker. The small rink at The Standard, High Line at the corner of Washington and West 13th streets in the Meatpacking District (noon to midnight weekdays and 1 a.m. weekends;) costs $12 if you bring your own skates or $15 with a rental.
Bad ankles keep me off the ice, but if I did skate, I'd head to Wollman Rink in Central Park, our first stop on my daughters' "Serendipity Tour" of NYC. Teenagers, they wanted to do only two things while in town, besides shop for fake designer purses in Chinatown and get a psychic reading in Central Park: See the "Harry Potter: The Exhibition" at Discovery Times Square ($27 adults, $19.50 ages 4-12; ) and retrace characters Sara and Jonathan's steps from their favorite Christmas movie, "Serendipity," from 2001.
Seeing Harry and friends' costumes and Hogwart props proved so powerful that one daughter actually cried; traipsing across Central Park to Bloomingdale's and Serendipity 3 on East 60th St. on the Upper East Side also elicited tears, albeit ones of frustration. Not only did we have to wait two hours for a table at the famed ice cream parlor depicted in the movie "Serendipity" -- all we wanted was a cup of its famous $8.95 frozen hot chocolate! -- but also when we finally got seated, it was in the not-so-quaint back room upstairs.
