Xmas 2011 – Ebenezers Unite!

As much as I tried this year to be jolly and bright, I couldn't even muster up one Ho-ho-ho. I had carefully planned what I thought would be one of the best Christmases ever, but “Bah, humbugger,” it was a bust.





I booked rooms for us at the W NY Hotel, one of the best places to stay in NYC. We were in midtown, which means we were moments away from most of the holiday season action.

On the 24th, my son Grant and I woke late morning, had breakfast and then were off to get festive. We window-shopped and sang carols as we strolled down Fifth Avenue, watched the skaters at Rockefeller Center, got haircuts (okay, that's not holidayish, but it sure is a treat), visited Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and bought presents.



While out looking for "Christmas," we stumbled upon the French restaurant, La Grenouille. What a find La Grenouille is. (Btw, grenouille means "frogs legs.") It's incredibly elegant, with a dining room that has all the beauty, warmth and charm of French restaurants from years past. Turns out that La Grenouille is the last of the greats. Remember Lutèce, La Côte Basque and Lespinasse? Well, La Grenouille was part of that same Frenchpack cuisine and just happened to open the same year I was born...destiny!


We hit one snag: this is a formal dining space and we were not appropriately dressed. But as luck would have it, this worked to our advantage. Why? Because we had to dine upstairs, which is really where you want to be after a morning of shopping and singing. Talk about a drop-dead-gorgeous space! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.





Before La Grenouille became a restaurant, it was a stable and, according to our server, housed the carriage for the Vanderbilts when they lived in what is now the Cartier Mansion.

Upstairs also has quite the story: the space was once the home of the French artist Bernard Lamotte. This atelier was nicknamed Le Bocal (the fishbowl) since many bohemian artists and French expats would hang out there with him and his wife. The Lamottes also entertained some of the top A-Listers of the day: Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin and Marlene Dietrich, just to name a few. And, three of his paintings still adorn the walls!

As we sipped our 2009 Puligny-Montrachet ( tasting note: if you're looking for a fruit forward white don't look to the 09 Puligny-Montrachet why? because this wine is all about the mineralty) and ate frogs legs (after all, how could you not order the frogs legs) things were beginning to look a lot more like Christmas. Sadly it didn't last...



After our wonderful experience at La Grenouille, we did a little more shopping, and then headed back to our hotel to dress for the evening’s affairs. At four o’clock, we went for a nosh at db Bistro Moderne located across the street from Lincoln Center. We ordered the Charcuteries thinking, "What a perfect bite to have before the show, and more importantly, how can anyone mess up cold cuts?” To answer that question, the cured meats were fine; however, I wish I could say the same for the pȃtés. If I had only one word to describe them, it wouldn't be an actual word but rather a syllable: Uck!



We had one glass of wine, which I won’t bother mentioning, as it, too, was a disappointment. At that point, I was starting to feel like Debbie Downer, so I quickly tried to switch gears by suggesting we go next door for hot cocoa and cappuccinos. Sadly, the mood there was not much better: the staff was annoyed by having to work on Christmas Eve, and the patrons were grumpy because the store was crowded. Oy vey already! Time to move on! I had hoped that things would improve once we crossed the avenue in the warm December air. Wait – maybe that was it! It's December, and it feels more like March. No, that's silly, isn’t it? How could the weather be the culprit for this Ebenezer’s Eve that has taken the skip out of our step and replaced it with a Quasimodo drag?

Whether it was the weird temperatures or not, I was determined to drum up some spirit and was relying on Hansel and Gretel at the Met to "bring it!" Seeing this opera on Xmas Eve has been on my "To Be Experienced” list for a long time, the same way going to the Macy's Parade on Thanksgiving and spending New Year’s Eve in Times Square used to be. Supposedly, it's the opera to see before all other operas, as it will leave such a wonderful impression on you that you'll be encouraged to see others. Think of it as your Launch Opera.


Some trivia: the German composer Engelbert Humperdinck (no relation to the pop singer, whose real name is Arnold Dorsey...so how did he end up with Jerry as a first name? His friends would call him Jerry because he often imitated comedian Jerry Lewis, and like most nicknames, it stuck) wrote Hansel and Gretel, and it was first performed on December 23, 1893, in Weimar, Germany. Even though its first performance in America was in October 1895, the opera became synonymous with Christmas. Perhaps its holiday association is due to it being the first complete opera broadcast from the Met on Christmas Day, 1931.





Arriving at the Met is always special. The fountain was lit (btw, every time I see the fountain, I flashback to the scene from the movie Moonstruck. You know, when Cher is rendezvousing with Nicholas Cage to see La Boheme?), and everyone was dressed so nicely. We arrived early enough to leisurely find our seats just as the starburst crystal chandeliers began ascending to the ceiling. The orchestra began playing, the curtain rose and the singing started. Yes, it was in English, but that didn’t mean we were able to understand what they were saying...




Halfway into Act One, it was clear that my guests were bored. I tried to make light during intermission by suggesting we operatically sing our conversations for the rest of the evening.
I started by singing that we indulge in a glass of champagne! We're at the Met, it's Xmas Eve, let’s be festive and have something that sparkles! Great idea, right? WRONG. Complete fail. I'm thinking at $18 a glass, it should be okay. It was UNdrinkable, which killed me. Why not at least serve Korbel? After all, it's the MET, not Lou's Playhouse! Serve something decent! Sheesh.

So let’s sum things up... I have three guests who were served food that was barely edible, drank less than average wine, are now bored out of their minds and can’t even get a decent glass of bubbly. It's got to get better, no? The bells rang to announce that intermission was over, so we made our way back to our seats. Things picked up with the arrival of the big heads. (That's also around the same time my ADD kicked in...all I kept thinking about during the scene with the big heads were the people inside those costumes – how hard they must have worked, all the money they spent on singing lessons, how they must have suffered for the love of their art, perhaps even sacrificed romance, lived meagerly, ate cereal for dinner, but how it was all worth it to follow their passion, their dream, knowing in their heart of hearts that their big break would eventually come! Then one day, the phone rings and it's their agent on the other end of the line announcing that they landed a role AT THE MET in a production of one of the most famous operas in musical history! Imagine their joy at that moment, only to be dashed by another moment five seconds later when they learn that they'll be playing the part of the third big head on the right in Act Two.





I would love to tell you how, after the performance, it started to snow as we headed to have a late dinner at Artisanal Fromagerie, Bistro and Wine Bar, and that the wine and food were delightful and the service incomparable, but I would be lying. It was understaffed, obnoxiously crowded and they were out of the Christmas goose. We officially became the Three Scrooges, even though there were four of us!

Conclusion: Next year I will look for Christmas at the Beach!