Lynda05

I'll be taking my grandson to New York from the 23rd - 28th of December '06. He's a teenager and it's his first trip to New York. Any suggestions for theater tickets, restaurants, and tours for Xmas Eve and especially Xmas Day. Thanks for the help.

HowardR

You are not going to have too much to choose from on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Most places--stores, museums, etc.--will be closed. Your choice of restaurants will be greatly diminished, while there will be few, if any, shows performing.
As for the rest of your days, get your theater tickets ASAP. That is the busiest time of the year for the theater.

djkbooks

Opentable.com is a good place to start for restaurants. Not every restaurant in the city is listed, but you'll find plenty open Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The list will likely be much longer within 60 days of your dates, as many restaurants do not take bookings earlier.

Our favorite place for Christmas Eve dinner is the Sea Grille with views to the skating rink and tree at Rockefeller Center.

Highly recommend Radio City Christmas Spectacular - it really is spectacular.

starrsville

I agree with the Christmas show at Radio City. He may also enjoy the Behind the Scenes tour there.

Not specific to NYC, but Chinese restaurants are good options on Christmas day. They are often the only restaurants open on Christmas Day in other locales.

nytraveler

If you don;t want to do a big formal Christmas dinner agree tht your best option is ethnic - but many are usually open: Chinese, Indian, Thai etc.

If you do want a formal dinner get reservations early - since there are usually set seatings and anyplace that's decent will be full.

I'm not aware of Christmas eve or day tours. Usually everything (except movies or church) is closed on the latter. The former a lot of restaurants, cafes, clubs etc will be open - but tours? If you mean Christmas Eve daytime everything will be open.

Neopolitan

I know this gets discussed every year, so you should be able to get some specific restaurant suggestions by doing a search here on the subject. Many hotel dining rooms will be open -- years ago, that would be nothing to get excited about, but these days many can really be top notch.

djkbooks

Christmas Eve, after the stores close, and Christmas Day are a terrific opportunity for walking all over and seeing the department store windows. Here's a map

http://gonyc.about.com/library/galle...maswindows.htm

LoveItaly

Neo, Christmas in NYC and Thanksgiving dinner in SF seem to be brought up annually. I should start getting info together regarding Thanksgiving in SF..maybe get some of our SF Fodorite's to help.

Hope your S CA time is going well..been thinking of you!

djkbooks

Also, take a ride on Subway line 7 all the way to the end. Area around station full of ethnic restaurants and gift shops.

The reason to go, however, is for the views of the skyline when the train is above ground on the way back.

Ride back all the way to Grand Central for the laser light show, on the hour and half hour, between 11:00 AM and 9:00 PM.

mclaurie

There are usually a few shows that have performances on Xmas eve and Xmas day. Playbill.com lists them on the lower right of their home page under insider info but it's not there yet. Also this page
http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/tripplan1.htm
will shows shows by day but they don't have Dec. up yet.

Blue Man Group, Stomp and Drumstruck are 3 off Broadway shows that have been very popular with families with teens and one or more may have performances. Cafe Wha is a club in the village that has music and comedy. Again, very popular with teens.

You might want to do one of the holiday lights bus tours, but walking and checking out the windows is really the way to see the decorations.

How old of a teenager is he?