Christmas in the City

We're back from our quick Christmas trip to New York City to see family and be silly tourists. Grandma shared stories over Christmas dinner about Johnny, the family cat in Slovakia. He'd sneak into the smokehouse and try to jump up and grab the curing meat. And then, Grandma mentioned, "Johnny had kittens." For Johnny, this was a far happier ending than the story of Grandma's pet rabbit that she'd found in a field, who later turned up on the dinner table.
After Christmas dinner we headed into the city and our hotel off of Times Square. Ah, the throngs of people. It was crazy crowded, as my photo of Rockefeller Center will attest. There is a skating rink down there somewhere, but we quickly shrugged off any desire to see it after looking at the crowd. Same story for looking at the Christmas displays in store windows like Saks Fifth Avenue. We could see well enough from the emptier sidewalk, across the street. We scoffed at anyone who suggested it was cold. At 30-40 degrees, NYC was warm compared to the temperatures we left behind in Chicago. "This isn't cold at all!" we declared in self-congratulatory fashion to each other as we walked around.
We also marveled at the pageant that is Times Square. There's an entire store that's dedicated to M&Ms, and you don't even see any candy until you get to the second floor. Better yet, it's open every single day until midnight - including Christmas Day. I momentarily considered an M&M umbrella, but realized I was just getting pulled into the moment. (I regretted what seemed like a wise choice when it began raining later that night. M&M umbrella, where are you when I need you!!??) Jason delighted in the country's only NHL store, and I found our way to the Sanrio store.
There was good food, Good Burger literally. And the big floppy pizza slices I miss so much after moving away from the East Coast. For our learning and betterment we visited the Theodore Roosevelt birthplace, a brownstone on the Lower East Side, as well as the Tenement Museum. (Adeptly navigating our way to both via the subway.) The Tenement Museum was intriguing; half of the tour takes you through the building as it was left years ago, with the layers of flaking paint and wallpaper once hung by the people who lived there. Then you walk through the apartment as it looked when inhabited, complete with beer bottles on the table and laundry hanging on the door. (The virtual tour gives you a sense.) I later realized that the tenements were really not much smaller than my grandmother's apartment on the Upper East Side, where she noted regretfully, the rent has been raised this year - to $544 a month. (60+ years of rent control!)