Christmas Morning on Fifth Avenue
You step out of the subway at 59th Street and the city is quieter than you expect, then louder than you expect. Barricades line the avenue for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade — but that was a month ago. Today the streets around Rockefeller Center belong to walkers. The Channel Gardens are strung with lights, the Prometheus statue glows gold over the sunken rink, and the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree — a Norway spruce raised in early December and lit through early January — stands above it all. Skaters trace slow circles below. You join the crowd along the Channel Gardens and look up.
Christmas Day in New York is not a day for a checklist. It is a day for walking, for standing in line at the one deli that stayed open, for taking the long way back to the hotel because the lights are worth it.
Skate, Climb, and Look Down at the City
Start with the rinks. The Rink at Rockefeller Center is the famous one, but it is not the only one. Central Park's Wollman Rink, at the southeast corner of the park, offers a longer, wider sheet of ice with the skyline rising behind it. Bryant Park's Winter Village, behind the New York Public Library between 40th and 42nd Streets, sets a small rink at the center of a market of glass kiosks selling crafts, hot cider, and gifts. The rink there is free if you bring your own skates; rentals cost extra.
If you would rather stay warm, go up. The Empire State Building's observation deck on 34th Street and Fifth Avenue is open on Christmas Day, and the lines are shorter than on a summer weekend. Top of the Rock, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, puts the tree and the rink directly below you — the view that defines the season. The Edge at Hudson Yards, west of 30th Street, offers an outdoor sky deck with a glass floor. All three sell timed tickets online; buy ahead.
- Wollman Rink, Central Park at 59th Street — open Christmas Day, weather permitting.
- Bryant Park Winter Village — rink and market kiosks, free admission to the park, skate rentals available.
- Rockefeller Center Rink — the iconic one; timed tickets sell out, so reserve early.
Markets, Windows, and the Walk Between Them
The holiday markets are the city's living rooms in December. The Union Square Holiday Market, at 14th Street and Broadway, runs through late December with rows of wooden stalls selling ornaments, wool hats, and hot food. The Bryant Park Winter Village, open through early January, is the largest and most central. The Columbus Circle Holiday Market, at the southwest corner of Central Park, is smaller and easier to move through. All three close on Christmas Day or operate reduced hours — check before you go, and plan your market browsing for Christmas Eve instead.
What stays open on Christmas Day is the walk itself. Start at Herald Square and go north on Fifth Avenue. Macy's Herald Square — the original department store, between 34th and 35th Streets — decorates its windows each year with a themed animated display. Continue to Saks Fifth Avenue, across from Rockefeller Center, where the facade becomes a light show after dark. Bergdorf Goodman, at 58th Street, builds the most elaborate windows of all — miniature worlds behind glass, no admission, just patience as the crowd shuffles past. Then cross into Central Park at Grand Army Plaza and walk the Mall toward Bethesda Terrace, where the arcade echoes and the fountain is usually still running.
Concerts, Carols, and the Sound of the Season
Christmas Day itself is quiet for ticketed performances — most concert halls go dark — but the season around it is full. The New York Philharmonic performs Handel's Messiah at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in December; check the schedule for the exact dates, which vary by year. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, with the Rockettes, runs from early November through early January at Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Sixth Avenue — one of the few major shows that performs on Christmas Day itself, with multiple shows. St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets holds Christmas Masses; the midnight Mass on Christmas Eve draws a crowd that lines up hours early. Trinity Church at Broadway and Wall Street, and St. Bartholomew's on Park Avenue, both hold services and often offer free organ recitals or carol sings in December.
If you want carols without a pew, walk through the West Village on Christmas Eve. Groups of neighbors and strangers gather at Washington Square Park and along Bleecker Street to sing; the tradition is informal and depends on who shows up. The same is true of the bars on Hudson Street, which stay open late on Christmas Eve and fill with people who have nowhere else to be — in the best sense.
What to Eat, and Where to Find It on Christmas Day
Most restaurants close on Christmas Day. The ones that stay open are the ones to know. Chinese restaurants in Chinatown — along Mott, Mulberry, and Canal Streets in Manhattan — have served Christmas dinner for generations; the tradition is old and the dumplings are good. Jewish delis on the Lower East Side and in the Diamond District, like Katz's on Houston Street, stay open and serve pastrami on rye to a line that wraps the block. Indian restaurants on East 6th Street in the East Village — the stretch known as Curry Row — also open on Christmas, as do many in Jackson Heights, Queens, along 74th Street.
For a sit-down meal, the hotel restaurants are your safest bet: The Plaza's food hall, the Palm Court at The Plaza on Fifth Avenue at 59th Street, serves afternoon tea and holiday meals; the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Terminal, 89 East 42nd Street, is open on Christmas Day for seafood and pan roasts, a New York institution since 1913. For something simpler, the food halls at Chelsea Market, 75 Ninth Avenue, and Gotham West Market, 600 Eleventh Avenue, have vendors open on reduced hours. And the street carts — pretzels, roasted nuts, halal — operate all day in Midtown, steam rising off the griddle, which is its own kind of Christmas dinner if you eat it standing up on a cold corner.
A Neighbourhood Worth the Walk, and a Day Trip If You Want One
After the Midtown crowds, go to Brooklyn. Take the F train to York Street and walk to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, a raised walkway above the BQE with the best free view of the Lower Manhattan skyline. On Christmas Day it is quiet, the water is gray, and the Statue of Liberty is a small green figure in the harbor. Then walk down to Dumbo — Washington Street between Water and Front — where the Manhattan Bridge frames the Empire State Building in a single photograph that half the city has taken and that you will want to take anyway. The cobblestones on Plymouth Street are empty on Christmas morning. The pizza at Juliana's on Old Fulton Street is worth the wait if it is open; call ahead.
If you have a car or a willingness to take the Metro-North from Grand Central, the Hudson Valley is an hour north. The villages along the river — Cold Spring, Beacon — are quiet on Christmas Day, but the train ride itself, following the water past the Palisades, is the point. Buy a ticket, ride up, ride back, and watch the sun set over the river from the window.
Start With a Date and a Coat
Christmas in New York is a walking holiday. The city does not shut down; it changes key. The rinks stay open, the churches fill, the Chinese restaurants steam, and the avenues belong to anyone willing to put on a hat and go. Book your rink tickets and your observation-deck time now, pick a hotel near a subway line, and leave the rest of the day open. The city will fill it for you.