3 Days in New York City (December 2025)

I spent three days in New York City for the holidays and recovering from illness.

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If you’re stumbling upon this blog for the first time, welcome! I have a lot of regular readers that I know about and cherish from the bottom of my heart, but for those who are just stopping by for the first time: my name is Ashley. I work on this blog as a little outlet from my job and life as a writer, which is awesome, but I used to work professionally as a film critic and wanted a space to keep going with that practice.

I tend to write about lifestyle, movies, books, and television. Today’s blog post is in the travel category, as the theme of fall 2025 for me has been self-care and learning how to adjust to my new job. I spent most of my time in graduate school and immediately after undergrad often shuttling myself to New York City, as I had work to do there often as a freelancer and writer, but lately I haven’t been going back lately.

I think having a new job that’s more rigid hours has had me tired on the weekends, so instead of going out and hopping on a bus to the city, I’ve been spending more time locally and in my home trying to catch up on all my chores. Which is fine, but makes for less exciting life updates at the end of the day.

However, this year I wanted to make it up to the city for my theater’s holiday party, which I usually don’t go to because I’m not around for it. I bought my Amtrak tickets way in advance, in September, and got a good deal of $50 roundtrip. I’m used to seeing it being over a $100, and I’ve never gone on the Amtrak without a company paying for it, so this was pretty exciting in my world!

I did have tickets for shows this trip, as well as various other plans, but a lot of my plans did fall apart. I had no idea while I was in New York, but I had contracted Type A flu and was actually pretty sick. I should not have been pushing through and trying to do things in order to say I didn’t waste a trip. Sometimes getting away is just rotting on someone’s couch!

Let’s get into what I did when I wasn’t sick during this trip.

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Christmas decor in New York City is always so fun to look at and perfect for getting in the holiday mood.

Every year I tell myself this is the last time I go around and walk around the Christmas decor, but this year was no different. I woke up on Saturday morning, after arriving late at the person I stay with’s house late Friday night, and went out at 10:30 AM to go to the Bryant Park area. I was planning on going to Ten Thousand Coffee, but was shocked to see SantaCon going on right outside of it and masses of people inside of the coffee store.

Instead, I got a hot longjing mochi latte from HeyTea, which was much better than I expected, across the street and then began wandering towards Rockefeller Center. I stopped by the Avenue of the Americas to see their annual Christmas tree, as well as the decor around Radio City Musical Hall.

I then wandered over to the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, which was a bit of an open-air zoo. This year seemed to be a lot worse than usual in terms of the crowds, and it was wall-to-wall people. If you got caught in the wrong way upstream, you were pretty much stuck because no one was letting you through.

I still had some time to burn before I had to go to Lincoln Center for my Ragtime showing, so then I wandered into my favorite bookstore chain in New York: McNally Jackson. I love their curation and the fact they organize their fiction by geopolitical region, so when I go up there I usually buy a Tilted Axis Press book (they’re one of the few places I can find this British publisher) and a poetry collection from someone I know.

After doing some damage in there, I decided to take a long walk through Times Square, looking at all of the Christmas decor that was setup, then along the perimeter of Central Park. I ended up in the mall at Columbus Circle, which was really decked out for the holidays. I’d never been in there, but it’s mainly luxury stores and restaurants with a Whole Foods and some fast fashion options. I liked it in there though!

I then went to Lincoln Center, which was also decorated, as I had to see Ragtime for the 2 PM matinee. More on that in the next section!

Hadestown and Ragtime are two really solid Broadway shows for theatre enthusiasts and tourists alike.

My first show I booked for this trip was Ragtime, then I ended up booking Hadestown later after every I respect in the theater criticism world started telling me that Jack Wolfe is someone you had to see in the role of Orpheus. These were single handedly the most I’ve ever paid for Broadway tickets ($120 and $132), but I saw it as a bit of a splurge because I was spending time in New York during the holidays.

I’ve written reviews of both shows under the theatre reviews section of my blog, but basically both were fantastic. I went into Ragtime completely blind and not knowing what exactly it was going to entail, but with such a strong cast and an emotional book I can see a lot of people justified in their raving about this show. Hadestown I had already seen twice before and knew I loved.

I had a huge gap of time between both shows, so I took the 1 train from Lincoln Center after Ragtime, when night had already fallen, back down to Bryant Park. I grabbed dinner at Madras Dosa Co., where I ordered a papdi chaat, Diet Coke, and masala dosa. I wasn’t too hungry and could have just eaten the masala dosa in hindsight, especially considering it was $35 for everything. The chaat sizes are definitely for two people.

I also continued my leisure walks around the city and went to check out what was happening in Times Square. I kind of wanted dessert but was so full, so I didn’t end up stopping anywhere, but it was interesting to see how many tourists were in town. It was also wall-to-wall people here in a way that I wasn’t used to, and I got stuck in a bit of a current that I couldn’t really get out of.

Between shows I ended up walking for about three hours, and it started snowing in the middle of it. If I was smart I would have gone to a coffee shop or something, but I didn’t feel like it. At least I got my steps in! I ended up passing out when I got back home after Hadestown.

Having friends and people you love in a place is always a joy, especially when a holiday party is involved!

The Sunday morning of this trip was the beginning of the warning signs for illness, as I woke up with a bit of a cough on this morning. I thought I was fine though with some meds, but as I learned after I already had gotten home on Monday night, I had the flu. I feel so bad for exposing so many people without knowing I was actually deeply sick.

Sunday was actually dedicated to helping out with a holiday party for the theater I’ve worked at for years. There was a lot of snow in the morning and it was really coming down good, so the person I was staying with lent me some gloves as I wandered out into the Brooklyn streets to go grab a bagel.

It was truly freezing, and in hindsight that definitely did not help my condition. The bacon, egg, and cheese I got through was pretty decent and not too expensive, so at least I filled up before we grabbed everything we needed and headed to Manhattan to set up party prep.

We did that for a few hours, with me downing a seltzer every so often because of my cough. Then we spent the evening hanging out with former interns, our supporters, and people we call a part of our broader theatre family. I see these people every year at the party, but never really outside of it—in the future I hope I get to see them more, even though I know that I’m not going to have a ton of chances to be up in New York because of my work.

Regardless, I had a good time and ate a lot of pasta and fudge. I’m glad I got to make it up for this moment, even though by the end I started feeling really bad because of my illness. I took a hot bath as soon as I got home then passed out in bed immediately.

Sometimes all you need is a hot chocolate and a day to rot in bed—but in a new location!

On Monday, the day I was supposed to get a train out of New York back home, I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a car. I had full chills, a cough, and was generally so tired I could barely get out of bed in general. I spent the entire morning in bed napping my feelings away, then I headed to Moynihan Station.

My Amtrak ended up delayed by almost two hours because of how cold it was, so I got my usual steak southwest salad from Chopt (I love that salad), spent some time in the food hall eating that, then roamed around a bit more when a creepy man sat across from me and wouldn’t stop being weird and talking to me. I ended up in a coffee shop sipping a cinnamon latte, which helped my throat a lot while I waited for my gate to be announced.

Thankfully, despite unknowingly exposing many different people to the flu, no one was symptomatic and contracted the same illness. I’m really grateful for this, as when I got my diagnosis at the doctor, my first thought was about how many people I had met at the party, or the person I stayed with while in New York. I was genuinely worried for them, as a lot are older folk.

Regardless, with the one good day I got, I had a decent time this trip! New York is always a fun place to visit.

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