City of Lights
If you want to avoid the masses at this year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree LightingCeremony (Dec. 3), you can watch it on NBC and Peacock starting at 8 p.m. Or you can attend other such celebrations throughout the boroughs, like at the Dumbo Archway in Brooklyn (Dec. 4); at Historic Richmond Town on Staten Island (Dec. 5); and at Ciccarone Park in the Little Italy section of the Bronx and at Sohncke Square in Woodside, Queens (both on Dec. 6).
Adventurous souls in search of immersive light shows can head to Long Island, where you can wander about Fantasy Winter Fairyland at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow (through Jan. 1) or drive around Magic of Lights at Jones Beach State Park in Wantagh (through Jan. 3).
Get Your Kicks
Celebrating 100 years, the Rockettes have become one of New York City’s signature holiday traditions with their “Christmas Spectacular” at Radio City Music Hall (through Jan. 5). But did you know that Staten Island has its own variation? “The Christmas Show” at the St. George Theater (Dec. 12-14) features musical numbers, the dancing Richmondettes and a living Nativity performed by over 100 volunteers.
Stage and Screen Classics
Michael Cerveris has played a who’s-who of villains onstage, from Sweeney Todd to John Wilkes Booth. This month he tackles a less bloodthirsty curmudgeon, Scrooge, in the Old Vic production of “A Christmas Carol” at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan (through Jan. 4).
I bawl like a baby every time I watch “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Frank Capra’s heartwarming 1946 movie about family, community and a kindly guardian angel named Clarence. On Dec. 14, the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights hosts a screening with pre-film caroling and an introduction by Mary Owen, whose mother, Donna Reed, portrayed the movie’s other angel: Mary, wife of George Bailey, played by the delightful Jimmy Stewart.
‘Messiah’ Substitutes
For those seeking alternatives to Handel’s Hallelujahs, options include the French ensemble Les Arts Florissants performing “Pastorale de Noël,” a lyrical recounting of the Nativity story, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Dec. 5-7), and “Gloria!,” the annual Christmas concert, featuring Bach’s “Ode to Joy,” at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on the Upper East Side (Dec. 14 and 21).
Kids
If the children in your life have yet to meet Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairies, take them to Theater Row in Hell’s Kitchen to see “My First Nutcracker,” a 50-minute production from the New York Children’s Theater geared toward ages 3 to 8 (Dec. 6-21). Standing in seats and dancing are permitted.
On Dec. 13, families are invited to explore the decked-out period rooms and take selfies with Santa at the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, one of the city’s last remaining 19th-century estates, in the Pelham Bay Park neighborhood of the Bronx.
For the Bah-Humbugs
If the holidays make you gag, you’ll really choke when Anthology Film Archives in the East Village screens the lurid 1972 Christmastime slasher movie “Silent Night, Bloody Night” (Dec. 10, 15 and 20). And Taylor Mac’s “Holiday Sauce,” a show about “songs you love and the holidays you hate,” is at Town Hall in Midtown on Dec. 19.
Comedy
Three funny ladies are requesting your presents. (Sorry.) Jane Lynch’s “A Swingin’ Little Christmas” is at the St. George Theater on Staten Island (Dec. 4), Anna Gasteyer’s “Sugar & Booze: A Holiday Spectacular” is at Town Hall (Dec. 15), and Judy Gold’s “A Very Jewdy Christmas” is at the New York Comedy Club on the Upper West Side on Christmas Eve.
Jazz
The tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, son of the saxophonist John Coltrane and the jazz harpist Alice Coltrane, is among the musicians celebrating his father’s musical legacy at the annual Coltrane Festival (Dec. 10-Jan. 4) at Smoke Jazz Club on the Upper West Side.
Yuletide Gay
I’m guessing the stockings will be rainbow colored at “The Queer Without a Santa Claus,” an adults-only evening of naughty jokes and burlesque at the Laurie Beechman Theater in Hell’s Kitchen (Dec. 2-19).
Hanukkah
On Dec. 11, get a head start on the Jewish festival of lights (Dec. 14-22) when the Museum at Eldridge Street on the Lower East Side hosts “Sacred Food: The Chanukah Table & Beyond,” a discussion about the holiday food traditions of Central and Eastern Europe and Ethiopia. The chef (and New York Times contributor) Rozanne Gold moderates, and a reception with a nosh follows.
The Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side kicks off the eight-day celebration with Hanukkah Family Day (Dec. 14), which features a display of over 100 menorahs and opportunities for children to design their own cards and mobiles.
Kwanzaa
If you want to mark the African American holiday and its seven principles early, head to a free event at the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture in the Bronx (Dec. 9). Otherwise, you can spend it at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum in Crown Heights. Presented with Asase Yaa Cultural Arts Foundation, the programming includes daily candle-lighting ceremonies and dancing, drumming and art workshops from Dec. 26 to 30.
Holiday Bites
On the first four Sundays of this month, the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side gives a two-hour tour of its recreated tenement apartments decorated for the holidays from the perspectives of immigrant German, Italian and Puerto Rican families. Afterward, the culinary historian Sarah Lohman leads tastings of Lebkuchen, a traditional German Christmas cookie. And on Dec. 17, the museum hosts “Hanukkah With Russ & Daughters,” which features a discussion with the 100-year-old appetizing shop’s owners about their debut cookbook and a reception with potato latkes.
Pop Music
My concert picks for each generation: for baby boomers, Earth, Wind & Fire at the Beacon Theater (Dec. 15-16); for Gen X, the Totally Tubular Festival, with A Flock of Seagulls and other new-wave favorites, at the Palladium Times Square (Dec. 29); for millennials, the Jonas Brothers at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y. (Dec. 21), and the Barclays Center (Dec. 22) in Brooklyn; and for Gen Z, Zara Larsson and other divas at Z100’s Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden (Dec. 12).
Poetry
Paul Muldoon and Rita Dove are among the poets reading and chatting at the annual PoetryFest at the Irish Arts Center in Hell’s Kitchen (Dec. 5-7). Most events are free, but registration is encouraged.
Aromatic Crafts
I love fake trees as much as any frugal Christmas lover. If you’re in the mood to splurge on the real stuff, though, on Dec. 10 the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in Crown Heights hosts a garland making workshop where you can fashion your own fragrant creation out of seasonal greenery and dried materials. Registration is required; experience is not.
Last Call
“Downtown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties,” a survey of works by Cindy Sherman and other art stars from that era, wraps up at Lévy Gorvy Dayan on the Upper East Side on Dec. 13. The Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s play “Art,” starring James Corden, Bobby Cannavale and Neil Patrick Harris, closes on Dec. 21 at the Music Box Theater. And Film Forum’s “Screen Deco” series, which ends on Jan. 1, provides a lovely way to celebrate Christmas Day: the 1935 Ginger Rogers-Fred Astaire musical “Top Hat.”
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