City Lights and Winter Chill in New York

We landed three days before Christmas, and the whole city felt like it was holding its breath for something magical. Fifth Avenue was a river of shopping bags and fogged-up breath, and the tree at Rockefeller Center looked exactly like it does in every movie, except colder and somehow better for it.

We skated badly, ate a truly enormous pastrami sandwich in the Lower East Side, and walked the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk when the skyline turned the color of a struck match. New York in winter doesn't slow down for anyone, but for a few days, we happily kept up.