What to Do on Christmas in NY - If You Don't Celebrate Christmas

Macy's Holiday store windows: open on Christmas (the displays, not the store)

How to spend the day on Christmas is a question that bedevils Jews every year, along with Scrooge, anti-holiday types and non-Christians. In New York, it's actually pretty easy to fill your day.

The Jewish Museum
The Jewish Museum, on the Upper East Side, offers a full day of programming (unless the holiday happens to fall on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath). There's a little bonus this year: on Christmas Eve, when many cultural institutions are also closed, the museum is free. It's always open, for free, on Saturdays, but no special programming is planned, and the restaurant and gift shop are closed.

See the Rockettes on Christmas

Go to the top
One World Observatory, in lower Manhattan, and Top of the Rock, in midtown, are both open Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Eat Chinese food
This is what we did on Long Island when I was younger; everyone in my mostly Jewish town went to the movies and ate Chinese food.

Go to a movie
See above.

Most Chinatown restaurants are open on Christmas

See a Broadway show
Yes, several shows have Christmas performances including both Jersey Boys and The Color Purple, both of which close in January. Catch them while you can!

Kick up your feet
If you are a Christmas hater or agnostic, this may not be for you, but the Rockettes perform their Christmas Spectacular multiple times at Radio City Music Hall.

Most animals don't celebrate the holiday

Get wild
The Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo are all open on Christmas Day. If your kids have opened all their presents, eaten all the goodies and are starting to turn on you, take them to the zoo where they can at least forget about inside voices.

Visit the store windows
No jockeying for space in front of the most popular store window displays. You can see Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdales and Macy's, and even check out the tree at Rockefeller Center.

Take a ride
Drive or hop on the subway and see the holiday lights in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. These free displays are lit as soon as the sun sets.

Find more suggestions on how to spend Christmas (and Christmas Eve) at NYC.com.

Every Day is Black Friday with Groupon Coupons

Lat year's Toys for Tots donations

When I was younger, my mother was a huge day after Christmas shopper. This was traditionally the day you could get half price deals on holiday cards, wrapping paper and ornaments. 

Then Black Friday became a thing. My youngest daughter, Nora,  is a huge Black Friday shopper and we have driven from Thanksgiving dinner to sports stores so she can stock up on running shoes, running tights and soccer cleats. She also gets up at 5am and heads into Soho with her friends to trawl for the hottest deals.

I often buy toys half price right after Christmas and donate those the following year at Toys for Tots events. So they aren’t the latest toys, but I get more bang for my buck and the toys are all new and shiny.

Haven't found a deal yet for this car

This year is going to Nora’s biggest Black Friday yet - she gets home from her first semester of college the day before Thanksgiving, and that early morning Black Friday shopping excursion will be the first time she has seen some of her high school friends since August.

I prefer to avoid the crowds and I recently found out about Groupon Coupons. This is a new (ish) venture for Groupon. Instead of buying a voucher upfront, and then strategizing about when to use it, you can get these free coupons for lots of retailers.

And you can use these coupons anytime - not just for holiday shopping. Nora’s birthday is right after Thanksgiving, so I can shop now at some of her favorite retailers and spend the day after Thanksgiving letting my pants out and running an extra 12 miles to work off all that Thanksgiving gluttony.

I did a quick check of what's available right now on Groupon Coupons and found deals at 2 of her favorite places: $10 off at Uniqlo and 40 % off at Adidas.

There are also travel deals at Orbitz and Travelocity and since we have not yet booked hotels for our next family vacation, I know I will be able to score some deals here.

The beauty of these coupons is that if you buy them and forget to use them before the expiration date, there's no buyer's remorse: you aren't out any money.  But you can definitely save some.

Note: this is a sponsored post. Opinions expressed are my own.

Holiday Cooking, Texas Style

Dotty Griffith had me at pecan pie. I have been the Thanksgiving pie maker since I could turn on the oven, and pecan pie is my specialty. My ‘secret’ has always been to cook the sugar and corn syrup till the sugar dissolves, then melt the butter in. I don’t remember know how I came up with this idea, but I’ve never seen it in a recipe until the Texas Holiday Cookbook.

And this pared down recipe doesn’t add rum or any other nasty flavors to muck up the pie; Griffith even ‘allows’ you to use light or dark corn syrup. I’ve always used whatever was on hand; it’s nice to have that choice validated.

The cookbook has recipes for Thanksgiving through New Year’s, with Hanukkah and Christmas in between. And though the book is big on meat, there are some things in here for vegetarians.

There are latkes made with sweet potatoes – and rolled oats. And special Christmas breakfast idea, like kolaches (sweet rolls) and migas, Tex-Mex scrambled eggs/

If you like to give homemade food gifts, there is a chapter on making things like peppermint fudge, chili powder or black-eyed pea relish, to name a few.

There are also a lot of drink recipes to put you in the holiday spirit. Texas tea is perfect for a holiday party; the drink includes tequila, rum, vodka, gin and bourbon. In fact, this drink might be better in New York City than in Texas; our guests can walk or take the subway home.