Bring on the Festive Season

Now the ten ton 76 foot Norway Spruce at the Rockefeller Centre tree has been lit with 30,000 energy efficient lights, it is officially the most beautiful time of year in New York - the festive season!
There are very obvious signs in New York when Christmas is around the corner; the ice skating rinks are open, the store windows are decked out in holiday regalia, Christmas trees are sprouting, the Salvos are ringing their plaintive bells on every corner of Fifth Avenue and Handel's Messiah is being performed around the city. Here are my Top 10 Christmas "To Do's" this year, in no particular order:

1. See the baroque Christmas tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

2. See the origami tree at the Natural History Museum

3. Get tickets to George Balanchine's Nutcracker. It has been performed every Christmas since 1954
by the New York City Ballet

4. Visit the Holiday Train show at the New York Botanical Gardens. A conservatory is taken over to model an extensive collection of toy trains and over 140 replicas of New York landmarks - all made out of plants and natural materials

5. Get tickets to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular to see the famous Rockettes

6. Hear Isaac Mizrahi recite "Peter and the Wolf" at the Guggenheim along with the Juilliard Orchestra and installations by renowned New Orleans-based collective Ya/Ya.

7. Go ice skating at Bryant Park

8. Go shopping at the Holiday Christmas markets

9. Get tickets to Irving Berlin's "White Christmas"

10. View Charles Dickens' original manuscript of "A Christmas Carol" at the Morgan Library and Museum

Now all we need is the snow!

Images: Associated Press, gomanhattan, dailynews, Morgan library and museum