I refer to ‘Christmas’ as “Christopher Mouse” more often than not.
Arrival Day – 12/23
Today I woke up at 6:30am after a rough night of sleep and we were out the door by 7:45 on our way to the train. This year we were going to New York City for Christmas! It was easier for Mom and I to get to NYC vs having Philip come home. It only took about 20 minutes for the Uber driver to get us to South Station and then I had about an hour to chill before the train arrived. So I got a bagel with cream cheese and two chocolate frosted donuts, but they put those rock solid sprinkles on top. I also had my water bottle with lemonade in it. Lately I’ve really been enjoying lemonade over water.
At about 9:10am the Acela to NYC arrived and we were on our way! I mostly played Clash of Clans since this week happens to be clan games and watched Youtube. I’d say the journey was around 4 hours with a 25 minute delay because of signal issues. I did make sure to note that the Acela wifi is a bit better than the Northeast Regional wifi. Interesting.
Once we got to the station we headed to the hotel. We were in the same one as last time except this time I had a regular queen sized bed rather than a mini twin. (Mom and I disagree on mini twin vs regular twin vs full sized twin, but when you are 6’2” everything feels like a mini twin lol). Also if you have no idea what I’m talking about that’s ok…I haven’t published that blog yet.
After getting settled in Mom opted to go to a Mexican food place called Mad Dog & Beans for a late lunch. Mom said she used to go to a Mexican place with the same name with her friends when she was in college at the University of Texas in Austin and this place reminded her of that. The food was pretty solid! Their take on salsa was more of a pico de gallo, which was a pleasant surprise. I’d definitely go back.
After lunch, we had about 1.5 hours to relax before Philip got off work, so we went back to the hotel. After a 45 minute nap I was ready to go! We went to the corner of the hotel block and waited for Phil for about 10 minutes. The key destination of the day was a play about A Christmas Carol at The Players Theatre on MacDougal Street.
I thought the play was pretty mid overall. There was a bit too much yelling for me, but I thought Eric Fletcher (Scrooge) did a good job. Phil and Mom thought the whole thing was great though. (I’m usually a bit more critical in my reviews.)
After the show we were all ready for dinner. The place we went to was originally on a restaurant list made by Liz, then passed to Phil, who passed it to Mom and she then picked the restaurant. It was The Churchill Tavern! This place has a neat English pub sort of vibe with inspiration from Winston Churchill. The bathrooms apparently play recordings of Churchill. I branched out and got the English Dip (click for menu), which was a roast beef sandwich with au jus and french fries. I went with that because at Philmont we made something similar one summer and I remember liking that a lot. After dinner Mom and Philip shared a brownie and I got some vanilla ice cream. It’s also worth mentioning that at dinner I had my first alcoholic beverage since October 2nd. The streak has been broken! (I get badges for completing streaks like no alcohol for 30 days in my water tracking app.)
After dinner it was about time to go to bed. So we all headed back to the hotel then split ways.
Christmas Eve
In this scenario I think “Christmas Eve” sounds better than ‘Christopher Mouse Eve’.
So on Tuesday Mom and I were out of the hotel by 9:10am and on the subway shortly later speeding towards about 200th street. We were going to the New York Botanical Gardens (in the Bronx) to see the Holiday Train Show!
It was amazing! There were all sorts of model trains and dioramas of old New York City buildings. I tried my best to get the perfect shot, but it was difficult because the speed of the train was faster than my iPhone shutter speed. I did ok in the end though.
The plants didn’t really impress me. After Ethan and I toured the botanical gardens in D.C. I think I have seen enough plants to last a lifetime. The buildings were quite impressive though.
They were made mostly of wood and plants so that kinda fit the overall theme of the gardens. There was a Yankees Stadium, a JFK airport, a Radio City Music Hall, and a mini scale NYC skyline. (Among other things.)
After the self tour, Mom and I opted to get a quick sandwich at the cafe car and then we went to the gift shop so I could get a few postcards. Next we were headed back to Manhattan to fool around for a little while longer before meeting up with Philip. Phil had to work on Tuesday so we were mostly on our own.
Mom and I ended up touring the Union Square Holiday Market. I decided not to buy anything to save up for my January trip, but Mom got herself a new mini wallet. She took ages to decide on a color though. We also had some hot chocolate from a local vendor. I wasn’t a huge fan of the hazelnut aftertaste though. After that we headed back to the hotel to relax a bit before meeting up with Philip.
At around 5:15pm Mom and I left the hotel and waited for Phil before we all headed to dinner. We were going to the famous Pete’s Tavern (click for menu) for Christmas Eve dinner. I got a steak frites, Phil got a filet mignon, and Mom got an ahi tuna. It was all very lovely! Although a bit on the pricy side. For desert I had a NY cheesecake. After serving so many of them at Philmont during the hunts I now like cheesecake.
After dinner we opted to go to a local bar to have a second round of drinks. Unfortunately all the Starbucks were closed. (Sorry Paul). I got a martini. I haven’t had one since the North End last year in Boston so it was a nice finishing touch to an already great evening.
The last thing we did before retiring for the night was to go see the movie called Nosferatu. It’s a new, highly rated, horror movie out in theaters. That put me at 482 movies for the year. Pretty good! (Link goes to Letterboxd for my movie reviews).
Christmas Day
Ok so Wednesday morning was not a good day to sleep in because Philip was set to meet us at the hotel at 9am for stockings. Our family usually does stockings before the Christmas tree presents. Except this year we didn’t have a tree after stockings…we had the Rockettes!
The trip to the Radio City Music Hall was pretty fast on the subway and pretty soon we were waiting in a huge line outside the building. After getting inside we spent about 10 minutes getting situated before finding our seats. (Food, bathrooms, marveling at the interior…)
The stage hall was immense. Probably the largest room I’ve been in outside of a sports arena. We had about 30 minutes before the show started and so I used that time to check some games. Before the show started we were told no pictures were allowed sooooo I suppose I wont be able to show you how awesome it was.
Rather than spoiling it I will let you use your imagination. The singing was absolutely wonderful as well as the musical acting. I guess the only thing that would make it better would have been to see it the day before. You see it’s a Christmas Eve show that happens after Christmas Eve. (My thoughts.) Definitely worth seeing the Rockettes if you never have before.
After the show we went out on a walk around NYC near the Rockefeller Center and saw a few cool buildings that had gotten dressed up for Christmas.
There were a lot of people here. Too many for me!
We went over a few blocks to the Bloomingdale mall to see the shop windows next. Usually they put up some neat Christmas themed sets in the windows, but this year it was Wicked (the movie) themed.
The store wasn’t open and with not much else to do we headed back to Phil’s house to do the presents. After opening the gifts we set out to have dinner. That night we went to an ultra fancy place called Temple Court.
The plan was to get there an hour early and sit at the nice bar they have in front of the restaurant. Unfortunately there was just one seat so Phil and I had to stand. I got a drink called the Cameron Crowe (Catedral de mi Padre Espadin Mezcal, Faccia Bruto Gorini, Cappelletti, Orange, and Lime…$20) My goodness, it was one of the best ever. Period. Unlike my good friend Ethan who actually knows what all the ingredients mean…I just see ‘lime’ and go “ah I bet I’d like that”.
I had been thinking about the dinner (open link for menu) for about a week and I just couldn’t decide between the duck and the wagyu steak. Like COME ON the one time there is duck on the menu there is also the best type of steak ever??? Life is not fair. I’m a picky eater and so that’s generally how I navigate through the menu.
For the first course I got the Chicory Salad (Pink Lady Apple, Pepitas & Aged Cheddar). Seemed like a safe choice and it was delicious! I had spent much time lamenting the second course choice. I won’t ever have mushrooms so the Chestnut Agnolotti was the clear winner here, but I didn’t feel good about it because of the brussel sprouts. The pasta was well prepared, but I thought the taste was lackluster. I’m not sure I liked the aftertaste of chestnuts.
The moment of truth had come at last: the third course. I ended up getting the duck, ’Roasted Rohan Duck Breast’, and it was awesome! The main concern with getting the duck over the steak was how dry it might be. It turns out that was an unfounded fear. One unmissable conflict with getting the steak is that it came with mushrooms….I’ve found I can tolerate a mushroom sauce, but not whole mushrooms. *grimaces* Phil got the steak and he also balked at the mushrooms. Mom on the other hand got the scallops and was chillin’ with no care in the world.
The fourth course was desert. I got the sorbet with a citrus salad. It was less of a salad and more of a couple segmented slices of orange and possibly grapefruit. (I completely forgot about that restriction for my medicine until now…don’t tell my doctor). Overall dinner was awesome!! The challenge with having a meal with multiple courses is that sometimes you have to suffer through a few of the meals before you get to the one you actually want.
After dinner we went back to Phil’s apartment to watch the movie Carry On. It was supposed to be a Christmas movie, like the next Die Hard, but I thought it was pretty lame. Phil did too. While we watched the movie we sipped on some cocktails that Phil made with the gin I had given him last Christmas. When the movie ended it was quite late so Mom and I went back to the hotel and the day ended.
Departure
On Thursday I got to sleep in since we didn’t have much planned out. Philip had to work and so it was just mom and I on our own. Mom had really wanted to go have breakfast at a coffee shop across the street from the hotel so we went there first.
I got an apple cider as well as a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant. The breakfast sandwich was delicious!
We eventually decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the MET) on 5th Ave. We checked out of the hotel around 10:45am, left our bags at the counter, and took the subway up to Central Park. It was about a 10 minute walk to the museum and by the time we got there around 11:30 there was a huuuge line out front.
The line moved quickly and soon we were inside. I think it would’ve been better to have left my shacket at the hotel so I didn’t have to carry it around the museum the whole time. Like in D.C. this art museum was not something I relished the idea of visiting, but Mom was very interested! So carrying my shacket we walked around from exhibit to exhibit. A ‘shacket’ is 1 part sweatshirt one part jacket.
One cool part of the museum were the knights and armor rooms. Some sets of armor looked pretty epic, while others were cringeworthy. There were also quite a few horse statues with armor. Combining the weight of the rider plus his armor plus the horses armor means that the horse must’ve been super strong. Most armor seemed to be around 50lbs.
Apparently I visited this place when I was a kid about 26 years ago. There’s a picture of me just chillin on the Temple of Dendur in Egypt. Ok I wasn’t actually in Egypt, but wouldn’t that be exciting? It’s kind of crazy that mostly everything that was there then is still here today. I might update this blog in 2026 with a picture of me in the exact same spot haha.
There are a lot of super famous paintings here too and that’s what Mom wanted to look at the most I think. We saw classics from a whole range of painters, but Mom really wanted to see THE picture of Vincent Van Gogh the most. It was pretty mid to me, but what do I know?
By the 2.5 hour mark I was truly suffering with my eyes staring off into space and my mind nonexistent. Before leaving, Mom really wanted to see the painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River. It was in the American wing (no surprise there) and there was a wide open room with this monster of a painting in the middle.
For the record I do like this painting. This was the last stop before leaving so we took an extra 5 minutes to gaze in wonder at everything.
After we burst out into the fresh air of NYC I had us go to a food place I saw on YouTube: Hamburger America. It gives out Shake Shack vibes, except the menu is simpler and the food tastier. Mom was pleasantly surprised. We had taken a long subway and like a 12 city block long walk to get there so it better have been good.
Once we were done we headed back to the hotel to collect our bags then go to Penn Station to wait for the train home. It was about a 1.5 hour wait for the train by the time we got to the station, but that went by fast. Once on the train I finished the pre-draft of the blog and then watched some YouTube. Overall this was an epic trip and you can bet I’ll return for NYC trip 9! Still stuff to see.
Trip Stats
- Nosferatu rating: 4/5 stars from me
- Taxi’s taken in NYC: 0
- Steps: 50,871
- Best food item: Roasted Rohan Duck Breast
- Approx. subway cost: $25
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