Let's December It

My friend Brenda flew in from Colorado for the concerts this weekend.  That's right--concerts.  Plural.  Because there are two.  Saturday in Connecticut and Sunday out on Long Island.  We'll be in the car quite a lot over the next few days and that's okay.  Fangirls do what we have to do.  We go where we have to go.

More on the concerts later.

First, we hit Manhattan.  Well, that's not quite true.  The very first thing we did was watch Gavin DeGraw's performance Friday morning on the Queen Latifah show.  Singing his current single, Make A Move, he got our day off to a perfect start.  Then we hit Manhattan.

And there's no where quite like New York at Christmas.  The lights.  The smell of roasting chestnuts on every street corner.  Music is in the air everywhere.  Think Silver Bells:  "In the air there's a spirit of Christmas."  People are in the spirit and you can sense it.  I'm sure this is true everywhere but in New York, the impressions are exponentially bigger.  Manhattan is just unique in that it's huge yet compact.  Everything is jammed into a very small space and you can't escape from it--the scents, the views, the people.  Before you know it, you're completely caught up in it.  She gets under your skin, Manhattan does.  Watching masses of children looking at the store windows at Macy's or Saks Fifth Avenue is a good example.  Their joy and wonder is completely infectious.  The last couple of weeks before the holiday contain a lot of what they call "gridlock alert days"--days you're encouraged to leave cars at home and utilize mass transit.  We followed the advice and took the bus into Midtown. 

Macy's windows are always
pretty special.

We stuck pretty close to midtown all day.  Macy's, Harold Square, was the first stop.  The windows were beautiful, just what you'd expect. We actually saw actually two sets: animated ones on the Broadway side of the store and the story of Virginia (as in Yes, Virginia) on one of the other sides.  Brenda shopped a little.  I window shopped.

Lunch rinkside with our heatlamp
a bright sun filtering between
buildings.  Perfect setting.

After Macy's we headed up to the Winter Village at Bryant Park.  The park is filled with kiosks at this time every year with crafters, artisans and all sorts of other unique merchants selling all sorts of things out of their booths.  It's my absolutely favorite place in the City at Christmastime.  We were starving so we grabbed a table at Celsius, a pop up restaurant situated right next to the skating rink.  We had a table outside--yes, outside in December.  Each table came with a little heatlamp that provided the perfect amount of warmth.  The chairs were fashioned to look like ice.  Christmas music filled the air and we enjoyed the "warm winter salad" with roasted artichokes.  Hot chocolate too, of course.  I love Bryant Park in every season.  I love it's location behind the Library.  I love to people watch from the little green bistro tables and chairs that remind me so much of Venice.  After lunch we shopped for Christmas ornaments.  I'm still replacing all that were lost in the hurricane a couple of years ago.  A little yellow cab, an elfin skyline, and a representation of the Rockefeller Center tree now reside on my tree.

The tree was our next stop.  The tree had been our meeting place last year for our big gathering of Gavin DeGraw fans who'd all convened for a concert at the Paramount Theatre in Huntington, the same venue we'll be hitting on Sunday.  It was crowded but not so much that we couldn't get some pictures.  It's the quintessential New-York-at-Christmas thing to do.  Our tickets for the Christmas show at Radio City were for 4 PM so there was not much time to linger.  We headed off in the direction of the theater, passing the most energetic pair of bell ringers I've ever seen.  They were blasting Mariah Carey's I Don't Want A Lot for Christmas and dancing for donations with an abandon you just don't see in the suburbs.

We had great seats for the show.  Stage right about six rows from the front, just under the organ on that side.  I hadn't been to the Christmas show since my kids were 3 and 6 so that's 20 years ago now.  It hadn't changed much.  Santa still figures largely in the loose story line.  The Rockettes still wear the reindeer costumes (although they looked updated), they're still doing the toy soldier routine and others.  There's still the world's smallest sheet of ice and a pair of figure skaters.  The nativity scene had fewer shepherds and bigger entourages for the magi than I recalled but, of course, it's as moving as ever.  What I loved was seeing it with Brenda, who'd never seen it and some tourists seated behind me who exclaimed over every detail.  It was fun to see it "through their eyes."  I guess I kind of take that spectacle for granted.  There was one woman behind me who couldn't get over the live camels on stage.  When you live in and near New York, you know the moment the camels hit town.  The arrival of the animals to Rockefeller Center is covered on the news, just as is the arrival of the tree.  So it's not quite the surprise for us that it is for people from out of town.  Seeing it all with "fresh eyes" was special.  I had to buy an ornament here too.

After the show we swung through Rockefeller Center again.  The tree after dark is a glorious site and it overwhelms you with its magnificent beauty.

We'd arranged to meet our friend Sheeza (not her real name) who lives in Manhattan for dinner.  She'd recommended PJ Clarke's, a wonderful place on the corner of 55th Street and 3rd Avenue.  It's good to have a real New Yorker in your life.  Sheeza has good ideas for food and music often.  It was a nice walk from Radio City to the restaurant, not terribly cold yet.  The cold is coming on Saturday.  More on that later as well.

You want this too.  I can tell.

Dinner was lovely and dessert was divine.  Bread pudding with a whiskey butter sauce.  Obviously, I'm not Weight Watchering this weekend and I'm surely going to be angry with myself next week.  I can already tell my Christmas Eve dress isn't fitting well.  After dinner we moved to the bar to continue talking about Gavin DeGraw, the amazing friends we've made through him, concerts past, present and future, men, men, men and more music.  We laughed, sang with the music they were playing, chatted with others at the bar, enjoyed the best bartender I've ever met and missed the 11:00 bus.  Missing the bus is becoming a common event for me.  Buses depart every half hour or so until 11:00.  After that, you have to wait until 1:00.  

More shenanigans.

So a 1 AM bus it was.  That left time for more shenanigans (if this was twitter that would be hashtag shenanigans).  More laughter, another drink, more friendship.  Let's december it ....

It was 2:30 when we arrived home, tired but happy.  I'd spent the day as a tourist in my own backyard and it was enormously fun.  I'm beyond grateful to have made so many friends through the music and am blessed beyond measure with the warmth and richness they bring to my life.

No time to stay up even later to relive the day.  In a few short hours, we would be off to Connecticut.  Music is just around the corner.  We will december it some more.

~~~~

Train has a really fun Christmas song on their album Save Me San Francisco called Shake Up Christmas.  One of the lines is "so let's December it."

Sara Bareilles sings a gorgeous song about Manhattan.  It just about takes my breath away every time I hear it.  I'm hoping to hear it live at Saturday's show.

Flash back to last year's Paramount concert on November 30 (2012).  Gavin DeGraw fans decembered it for an entire weekend.  Here's a portion of the group.