At Home for the Holidays

TD and I recently put up our Christmas tree, which we always enjoy during the holiday season. My sister Cynthia and sister-in-law Barb are coming from Colorado and we'll be together with my two brothers and their families, which will be great. This will be our first Christmas without our parents; my father passed away in April and my mother passed away five and a half years ago so this will be a first for us.
Getting the tree is a project! The calm before the Christmas tree storm:

We used to live on Jane Street, and we have been getting our trees for thirty (!!) years from Billy Romp and his family who come down from Vermont and set up shop in the month of December at the corner of Jane Street and Eighth Avenue.

We love to see Billy each year. We pick out a tree and he straps it onto a cart that is attached to a bike and he walks with us to our apartment. We set up the tree and have a glass of red wine and catch up on the year.
Soon Billy is on his way and we get to work -- the lights, the ornaments, the star on the top, the cloth  below.
And voila –

I like how the tree adds a colorful glow to the room. Everything on the tree is personal to us. We have collected a lot of antique ornaments –

And a lot are handmade. The ornament in the middle that says "Greetings" was one of the last things that my mother made and sent us. She liked to create cards. TD cut out the paper angel on the left. 

In the front hall I put some evergreens in a glass vase and hung a few ornaments on the sprigs –

Our Christmas decorations include this reindeer on the living room fireplace mantle who has a pretty wreath around his neck. I found the reindeer at ABC Carpet and Home –

The fireplace doesn't work so we put a big candle in it for a warm glow –

I'm so grateful to be seeing my siblings and extended family this holiday season. I hope that your holidays have a warm glow too dear reader and I wish you all the very best for the new year ahead.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season. I have had an unusual season this year – super busy at my new job at Ralph Lauren, and also very preoccupied with getting my father ready to move to Colorado, which I wrote about on the blog previously. So my attention has been elsewhere and the holiday season has literally flown by, but TD and I have enjoyed some wonderful parties and entertainments here in New York City.
Last weekend we at last got our Christmas tree up (above). We got it from our friend Billy Romp on Jane Street who has supplied our tree since 1988.
For my birthday, which is at the end of November, we went to see Pippin on Broadway!
(photo from Pippin web site)

When I was in high school, I went to see the traveling version of Pippin in Utica at the Stanley Theater. I took a girl. Later we went to the junior prom. Let's just say I enjoyed Pippin more! This production on Broadway is directed by Diane Paulus, who was the genius behind the recent Broadway production of Hair, and it features gymnasts and acrobats in a circus setting. It was so colorful and entertaining. We sat in the first row in the balcony. I had great time.
My photo of the curtain call –

On TD's birthday, which comes one week later, we had a delicious lunch at Union Square Cafe –

Up at Bergdorf Goodman, the theme of the holiday windows is the arts. This glittering one is based on music –

They do such a fantastic job with their windows. This one is inspired by film. It looks like a Greta Garbo silent movie –

Down Fifth Avenue, TD enjoyed viewing the big tree at Rockefeller Center –

We went to see the Matisse cut-outs at the Museum of Modern Art. I love these Christmas colors –

My mother had a cousin named Bondie O'Donnell, and he has a daughter named Julia who has a daughter Uma who is 14 years old and is studying here in New York City at the School of American Ballet. She's a real ballerina! I think Uma and I are second cousins once removed. Anyway, TD and I took Uma to see George Balanchine's The Nutcracker at the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center. (photos from the web site)

It was so beautiful. I had seen it years ago but really had not remembered how ornate and gorgeous it is.

Here we are at intermission, O'Donnell second cousins once removed.

Today is Christmas Eve. We are going tonight to my brother Eric's in Montclair for a family dinner. There we will say good-bye to my father who is moving to Colorado on Friday.
This is a picture of the two of us a few years ago at a wedding –

I will miss him a lot.
And I am wishing you all the best for the holidays and the new year, dear reader. 

Christmas in New York

(click on photos to enlarge)
We have been celebrating the season here in NYC with lots of get-togethers with family and friends. I enjoy this time of year because we get to see so many loved ones – it fills up the well for the year. New York City has been donning the lights so that everything sparkles with color like Radio City Music Hall, above, and the Empire State Building, below.

Up at Rockefeller Center, the big tree had a slow start. Here it is before it was lit –

and then lit on a rainy night –

Finally recently on a balmy night it shone with golden flags waving overhead.

Our friends Katherine and Jim invited us to go with them to hear Chanticleer, the renowned male chorus. The concert was held at St. Ignatius Loyola, the majestic Catholic church on Park Avenue at 84th Street, which was built in 1886 and was the site of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's funeral in 1994.

The Chanticleer concert was beautiful and moving. It is the sound of angels singing. I recommend it!
The chorus takes af final bow: 

We went to get our Christmas tree on Jane Street from Billy Romp, where we have been getting our tree since, yes, 1988 –

Billy put our tree on his delivery bicycle/cart and brought the tree to our apartment through the streets of the Village –

The next night, we got it decorated –

Uptown, the stores windows were dressed for the season. I love this crazy scene at Prada with the wild floral luggage and the mannequin wearing grey socks and turquoise sandals.

At Bergdorf Goodman, the theme is "Holidays on Ice" which is a good way to celebrate fashion and luxury year 'round.
Pictured here is Valentine's Day, a glistening boudoir dripping with icicles.

A close-up of madame –

With all the activities of the holidays, I needed to lay down for a nap at home

which was quiet and still.
I am wishing you the love and joy of the season, and peace and stillness too –

Happy Holidays from NYC

At the Jane Street Tavern where we had a drink, TD drew a Christmas tree on the paper table cloth.

Dear reader, I hope you are having a joyful holiday season. I have been a little sad this time around. My mother loved Christmas, and I have many wonderful memories of family Christmases growing up. Even last year when she was declining, we had a jolly Christmastime in Connecticut. But TD and I have been having some fun adventures in NYC this holiday season. New York City is cheering me –

At ABC Carpet & Home, a beautiful Victorian Santa was poised to talk to children on a long velvet bench. (click on photos to enlarge)

I love the retail displays at ABC – they sprinkle flower petals and glitter nonchalantly over everything.

I went up to Grand Central Station one Saturday afternoon to meet my high school friend Suzy Ferenczy MacEnroe, and discovered there the newish Apple store which has been ingeniously integrated into the hallowed halls of the great train station. The elves, I mean "geniuses", wore festive red tee shirts.

Up at Rockefeller Center, skaters circled on the rink under glittering golden flags and the renowned  Rockefeller Center tree –

We were invited to celebrate the 50th birthday of our friend Toby Usnik at a lunch at the University Club on Fifth Avenue. Toby is the head of corporate communications and chief sustainability officer at Christie's auction house and his partner Harlan who I have been pals with forever is the president and chief executive of Armani Exchange. The Saturday night before the party we read in The New York Times that Harlan and Toby had been married! So the party was both a birthday and wedding celebration. Read their story here.
This wonderful and inspiring event at the University Club was held in one of the great rooms in New York –

There was a birthday/wedding cake on every table.

Up Fifth Avenue at Bergdorf Goodman, the gorgeous windows were inspired by the Ziegfeld Follies from the 1920's and 30's.

Downtown, the unfinished tower rising at 1 World Trade Center was lit for the holidays. Electricians working on the construction had installed colored wrappers on the building's lights. The top of the tower disappeared into a foggy night.

Our friends PR impresario James Laforce and his husband Stephen Henderson along with Fernando Santangelo hosted the best holiday party ever. It was held at 5 Beekman Street, downtown near City Hall. The building, constructed in the late nineteenth century and featuring one of the first elevators in the city, is now completely deserted, and so the party had a spooky theme. When we walked into the lobby we saw an upside-down Christmas tree hung over a piano where a ghoulish looking musician played.

Overhead rose the open nine-story atrium with a glass roof above.

The old elevator lifted us up to the eighth and ninth floors which were jammed with revelers for one of those parties where you run into everybody you have ever known. All of the bartenders and waiters wore grey makeup which made them look ghost-like. It was just a blast.

One brisk day I took a walk around picturesque Brooklyn Heights. The sidewalk of an old apartment building was lined with big pots stuffed with cabbage roses and cyclamen – cheerful plantings for the winter season.

At home, we always love our colorful, warm Christmas tree decorated with personal ornaments and mementos.

We have happy plans with family and friends for the holidays, and I'm grateful for the present moment and the gifts of the day. I wish you and yours the best for this holiday season and the new year to come.

A Peaceful Holiday

TD and I had a very nice holiday season and I hope you did too. Just before Christmas I got a chance to get uptown to Rockefeller Center. Though it was completely mobbed with visitors shoulder to shoulder, if you looked upwards, it was a glamorous vision. I loved the combination of the white lights in the trees, the golden flags flapping, and the big Christmas tree covered with colored lights, all set in front of the soaring Art Deco-style NBC building.

On Christmas Eve, we were guests of my brother Eric's family in Montclair, New Jersey, and on Christmas day my parents came to visit us. I put a white cloth on our table along with a bunch of evergreens, little vases of white and red striped carnations, and some antique red and white ornaments. Kind of Swedish looking.


The day after Christmas, a huge snow storm, a blizzard actually, blew in. Along with the howling winds came thunder and lightening; I had never experienced that before in a snow storm. Here was the view of 15th Street during the storm. Much more snow fell – 20-30 inches. What was nice was that the street became very quiet, with no noisy traffic or honking horns.

We had another family get together during the week when my brother Thom's family came visiting from Toronto. I made cupcakes

which went on to one of my favorite green and white platters.

The table was set again for a festive buffet dinner.

The next night we went to the Oak Bar at the Plaza Hotel for a drink. Thom ordered a Manhattan. He said it reminded him of 611; Milly drank Manhattans.

He said to me, "Smell it," and when I inhaled the rich, full mix of vermouth and whiskey, all of 611, especially at Christmastime, came back to me. Our Proustian madeleines are Manhattan cocktails.

On New Year's Eve TD and I went to a neighborhood bar and had an early drink. Then at home we made spaghetti and shrimp from a Mario Batalli cookbook and drank champagne. On pay-per-view we watched The Kids Are Alright. If you haven't seen it already, I recommend it as a good movie with two great performances from Annette Bening and Julianne Moore which I hope are remembered during awards season.
On the way home from the bar we passed this deli on Seventh Avenue, its joyful selection displayed behind tall snow banks.

I am wishing you dear reader a colorful and happy New Year.