December 12 – 14, 2025
Over a year ago, my friend Katie was visiting NYC and got roped into some deal where she was able to book a hotel for relatively cheap near Radio City Music Hall in NYC, as long as she went to a meeting where they tried to convince her to buy into a time share. She ended up booking the room for December 2025, and after I made an off-hand comment about how I’ve always thought it’d be fun to visit NYC at Christmas, she asked if I wanted to join her. At the time, I knew I was planning on going to Greece, but wasn’t sure yet what my specific plans were (read: how much PTO I’d have left), so I was pretty noncommittal.
Then over the summer, it was announced that Tom Felton would be playing the adult version of Draco Malfoy in the NYC production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Katie mentioned that she got tickets, but I didn’t know that her second ticket was yet unclaimed until September, when she once again asked if I wanted to go to NYC with her. At that point, Greece plans were solidified and I knew I had one day of PTO to spare. So, I booked the first flight to NYC for Friday morning, but had to turn right around and come back early Sunday morning so as to not miss my work Christmas party.
Speaking of work, a former work friend moved to NYC about two and a half years ago, and I hadn’t seen or really talked to her since, aside from the occasional social media comment. So, as soon as I got settled at the hotel, while Katie was talking her way out of the time share, I met my other friend for lunch. I had told her I was craving ramen or pho since it was so cold out, and we met at her favorite ramen shop in the city, Oramen. We both ordered the lunch special of tonkotsu ramen with pork gyoza which really hit the spot. Nothing beats ramen and good company to warm the soul.
Katie and I ended up booking tickets to see the Rockette’s Christmas Spectacular on Friday night, along with a tour of the Radio City Music Hall before the show. While we spent half the tour trying to tetris her motorized scooter into the tiny elevator, it was still really neat to learn about the inner workings of the theater and the show. We learned that the stage technology was so groundbreaking for its time, the U.S. Navy came out to study it for their aircraft carriers. At the end of the tour, they had one of the Rockettes come out and answer a few questions and take photos with all the visitors. While photos and videos are obviously not allowed during the performance, toward the end of the backstage tour they took us up to a viewing platform where we got to see a few minutes of an earlier show, and from there, photos were allowed (with a bonus loophole of turning iPhone live photos into a short little video clip).
I took ballet, tap, jazz, and chorus line lessons all throughout childhood into high school, so seeing the Rockettes perform was something I had dreamed about since I was a kid. At the time, I told Katie I could take or leave it, but once we got there I was so glad we bought tickets. I’d argue that the Christmas Spectacular alone is worth the trip to New York. Aside from the astonishing athleticism and synchronicity of the dancers, modern technology turned it into an immersive experience that left me feeling like I was living inside a snow globe. The most surprising moment of the performance was their inclusion of the nativity story. Beyond the sentimentality as a Christian, the costumes and stage lighting were so beautifully and artfully done during that scene, and they even had a live donkey, three sheep, and two camels! (Shout out to the one sheep who was clearly over it and turned his back on everyone to scratch an ear – that’s when I realized they were real lol.)
While Katie and I agreed to skip all the crowded Christmas markets, it would have been a shame to not see the Rockefeller tree and Saks 5th Avenue. We found a tip online that they light the tree at 5am, so we set our alarms for 5:30 Saturday morning, threw some clothes on, and made our way to the tree at 6am. Best decision ever. There were only a handful of other people at the tree that early, with plenty of barricade space around to take pictures. We then wound our way down to 5th ave to take pictures with the angel statues in front of the tree, and there were only two other groups of people in front of us forming a small line. The Saks 5th Avenue light show only runs from 5pm – 11pm, so we didn’t get to see that, but the building was still lit up and the window displays were fun to look at, again with no other people around. We watched the light show online later and honestly, we didn’t miss much; certainly not worth the crowds. We also later read online that people who live in the area will sometimes see the Radio City Music Hall camels out for a walk around 6am, so now we’re disappointed that we missed seeing that.
After a few hours of napping, we ventured back out into the crowds to visit the Museum of Broadway. To get there, we had to walk through a small pop up Christmas market and that was crowded enough to make me glad we skipped Bryant Park. The museum was really neat, and made me realize how many classics I still have yet to see. (And a little disappointed that Nashville’s TPAC has a lot of repeats this season that I just saw a few years ago.) There were a lot of costumes and set pieces on display. There was a really cool corner with a bunch of crystals hanging down that looked like a bunch of nothing, but when you turned the corner to where it marked a photo op, you could see it made the shape of the Phantom of the Opera mask.
After the museum, we headed back out to Time’s Square, caught a quick glimpse of the New Year’s Eve ball, and popped into the Hard Rock Cafe so Katie could collect some medallions. We thought we were going to be more crunched for time, so we made dinner reservations at a sushi restaurant right across from the Lyric Theatre. We ended up getting there early, and after ordering too much overpriced food, we went ahead and got in line for the play. We walked up just in time to hear the waiting crowd erupt in cheers as Tom Felton popped out the stage door, but I couldn’t see him over the crowd and I don’t think he spent much time outside.
The Lyric Theatre was remodeled specifically for Cursed Child, so it had a lot of fun easter eggs hidden about. The carpet was covered in the Hogwarts H, and there were of course chocolate frogs and butter beer for sale. Using your phone and QR codes, you could make the house banners fall from the ceiling, and patronuses on the walls and the characters on the show bill come to life. I had read the script when it first came out, and at the time I was a bit disappointed in the overall plot. Though, I knew it was meant for the stage and not to just be read, so I was looking forward to seeing how it played out (pun intended, of course).
Y’all, it was so much better than I could have ever dreamed it to be. This time I’m not using a pun when I say it was magical, because I mean that in the most literal sense. I still cannot wrap my head around how they cast some of the spells on stage. In the first few minutes you have students running onto the platform and then suddenly, they’re wearing cloaks that were previously nowhere to be seen. You see the whole stage warbling as they travel through time. And most impressively, the actors change into completely different people as they take polyjuice potion. The story itself was so much better than I remembered, and I absolutely loved Scorpious’s character. As for Tom’s portrayal of Draco, it was so fun to see him in real life obsessing over Harry Potter, emphasis on the P, and I told my friend I could tell he had studied the way Jason Isaacs carried himself as Lucious. After all, we all pick up mannerisms from our parents, especially as we age.
Overall, I had such a magical, Christmassy weekend and I hope I get the chance to do it all again some day.
Disclaimer:
While I know many of my readers probably agree with J.K. Rowling’s views on the transgender community, please know that it is incredibly harmful. I might not understand what it means to feel like you’re in the wrong body, but I don’t have to understand something to have empathy, or to believe people when they share their stories. The transgender community is currently being targeted in politics and made to be the villain, while in reality they are more likely to self-harm and attempt suicide than their cisgendered peers. If you’re able, consider donating to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention for LGBTQIA+ youth.
Scream And Be Frees 