What to send? What to give? Where to go? Where to eat and drink? I only make suggestions. There are, of course, no hard and fast rules about any of this.
This column is about the holiday season–Christmas and Hannukah (and Festivus?). If this offends you for any reason, your attitude offends me. So, we’re even. Merry Christmas!
First suggestion: be grateful. We all have our reasons to be upset about the last year, whether those reasons are valid or not. However, if you’ve got a roof over your head, a blanket and a bed, and you are well fed – you’ve got more to be grateful about than a whole bunch of other people with whom we are sharing this bubble of mud floating through an ever-surprising solar system, galaxy, and universe.
For a moment, turn your thoughts to the homeless, veterans haunted by nightmares of war, women and children abused in the name of love, and so forth: it’s a hard world and this season exists so that in the darkest part of the year, we can hope that God sends some grace and goodness to those less fortunate, while we enjoy whatever abundance we are blessed with.
Meanwhile, we want to be sure that our families and friends experience some joy during this season. So, we send cards. We give gifts (to the extent that we can afford such largesse). And we gather to eat and imbibe. Being in Manhattan, there exists an abundance of options for shopping and celebrating. Here are a few:
Whenever I see the word “letterpress” it conjures thoughts of Robert Grave and Laura Riding on Mallorca and the British Bloomsbury bohemians. Locally, if you’re looking for very special greeting cards and such, check out Greenwich Letterpress at 15 Christopher St. As 2025 winds down, it’s also the end of the shop’s 20th anniversary year. Two sisters–Amy Salvini and Beth Salvini – founded the company in 2005.
Fragrance seems to be an acceptable gift. But if you’re looking for something more than Aqua Velva or Old Spice aftershave, one of my favorite people on Earth happens to be the online Empress of Essences, la princesse du parfum. The amazing Vilma Hodo is the community host at the 7th edition of ScentXplore, taking place at Center 415, 415 Fifth Ave., Dec. 4-6.
“It’s a niche fragrance experience,” Vilma tells me. “People will be there from all around the planet.” New and unique scents from up and coming and established fragrance creators will be available for testing and for sale. If someone on your gift list is, shall we say, odiferous, ScentXplore is your chance to choose a gift that will have that individual wafting splendiferous.
Me personally? As a writer, I like to give books. (And I like it when people choose to give my books as gifts, of course.) This year, I got a shared present for my granddaughter and grandson, ages 4 and 2 respectively, that is all about words and learning to spell. It’s titled The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane with illustrations by Jackie Morris.
I found out about this book watching a YouTube video by the poet, bohemian, and Anglican priest Malcom Guite. He gave it a glowing, and deservedly so, review. The book came about after Macfarlane wrote a newspaper article about certain words that were being dropped from the Oxford Junior English Dictionary. The Lost Words is a beautiful, captivating book that helps children learn to spell and read, with a focus on the natural world.
I tried Books of Wonder, at 42 W 17th St., which Yelp lists as the Number One children’s bookstore in the city. They did not have it in stock and would have ordered it for me, in plenty of time for Christmas. However, I had my copy delivered by Amazon, since they also published my books.
I don’t buy all my books from Amazon, though. Any bibliophiles or rare book collectors on your list? I frequent multiple bookstores below 14th Street. I’ve found some real treasures at what I thought of as bargain pricing. First on my list is Left Bank Books, at 41 Perry St. in the West Village. There I purchased a German-language edition of the drawings of George Grosz titled Speisser-Spiegel. I also picked up a first edition copy of Ikons, a poetry collection by Lawrence Durrell from which I almost immediately memorized the poem Keepsake. I also found An Irish Faustus, which is one of Durrell’s verse plays, also a first edition. (Durrell is best known for the novels in The Alexandria Quartet but he was also a brilliant poet.) I felt a twinge of guilt paying as little as I did for these three gems.
Codex at 1 Bleecker St. and Village Works at 12 St Mark’s Place, are two more excellent shops when hunting for book treasures. However, you might want to wait until after Christmas to do your hunting, if you’re at all like me. I buy rare books for myself, not as gifts. Tsundoku is a Japanese word for people like me, who accumulate more books than they could possibly read.
I’d be remiss if Strand Bookstore, at East 12th Street and Broadway, went unmentioned here. Twelve miles of books, and this is their 99th holiday season. They’ve got new and used tomes to choose from, and a rare book room. They have other locations around town, so check their website. And, this being NYC, there are many other worthy, fascinating bookstores deserving of your patronage throughout the year.
One of my favorite music gigs used to be leading the singalong of The Twelve Days of Christmas as Pere Noel, at Café Un Deux Trois, 123 W 44th St. Circumstances beyond my control led to me dropping the gig. However, the tradition continues, now in its 48th year. Café Un Deux Trois has long served as a premier showbiz hangout. The names of stars and luminaries from various fields who have in the past and still frequent the place could fill an issue of People. Gerard Blanes, one of the owners, is a longtime friend of mine. We both lived on the island of Ibiza in the 1970s, before he and his business partner Georges Guenancia opened this first-class French brasserie.
The singalong is great fun for everyone. I’ve seen four generations of families, on multiple occasions, joining in and singing the song along with the entire restaurant crowd. It happens once every evening in December (closed Mondays) at 6 p.m. A reservation is essential—call (212) 354-4148. It is truly one of the best ways to celebrate the season.
There you have it. Don’t let the humbug bite. Happy Holidaze!
Stephen DiLauro is a playwright, poet, and unrepentant bohemian litterateur. His new book Who Killed Andy Warhol? The Untold True Story will be published in 2026.
