12 fun Christmassy things to do in NYC that’ll cost you nothing

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is hosting a Christmas Eve Service of Lessons and Carols that incorporates carols into the celebration of Christmas. Enjoy performances by the Cathedral Choir, led by Director of Music Kent Tritle, and artist in residence David Briggs. The Right Reverend Andrew ML Dietsche, Bishop of New York, will preside, and the Right Reverend Clifton Daniel III, Dean of the Cathedral, will offer a reflection. The service will be livestreamed at 4pm and will be available to view later in the evening across the Cathedral’s social media platforms. Its Christmas Day service will be held the next morning at 11am.

The Empire State Building is celebrating the holiday season with technicolor lights and the seasonal sounds. This December, the Empire State Realty Trust and iHeartMedia have teamed up to give it a little extra yuletide pizzaz. Every night leading up to Christmas day—Saturday, Dec 19 to Friday, Dec 25—New Yorkers can tune in for a special song and light display to get into the festive spirit.  This light show, designed by lighting artist Marc Brickman, will be synced with Carrie Underwood’s new song “Hallelujah” with John Legend, from her first-ever Christmas album My Gift. The tunes will be broadcasted on iHeartRadio’s Z100 and LiteFM at 8pm.

More than 80 parks in New York City will be lit up with menorahs and Christmas trees this holiday season, giving New Yorkers no excuse to miss out. This year, the New York City Parks Department announced dozens of parks and green spaces with lights across the boroughs. You can find your nearest lighting on the NYC Parks website.

There’s a different type of holiday light display on view in the Flatiron this year, and it’s a bit more reflective than your run-of-the-mill Christmas tree or department store window. “Point of Action,” the winner of the seventh annual Flatiron Plaza Holiday Design installation program, is an installation designed by Studio Cooke John along with lighting designer Jimmie Drummond that’s meant to evoke the feeling of seeing other New Yorkers from a distance—something we should all be pretty familiar with after the last year. The pandemic-inspired, socially-distanced experience invites visitors to contemplate the connections to one another and to think about how we’ll all move forward together. On view through New Year’s Day, the artwork consists of six-foot circles affixed throughout the plaza which create nine different “spotlights” surrounded by vertical metal frames.

Hoff’s Public Domain Horrorfest returns to YouTube at 9pm on Wednesday, December 23rd for a horror-filled night featuring the eerie 1972 slasher flick Silent Night, Bloody Night. Enjoy new skits, bits, and screams from host Hoff Matthews (Comedy Central) and co-producers Andrei Alupului (Come Ova, UCB), Marybess Pritchett (An Inconvenient Talk Show), and George Gordon (Laugh Track Festival, Your Good Friend)!