Christmas Break

I'm ashamed by how little we did over Christmas. I'm rubbish at taking time off to be at home usually, but we've travelled so much in 2014 (brag, brag, brag), we both needed some down time.

So we had 12 days off and we made two excursions: one to see tacky, OTT Christmas decorations in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, and the second up to the Met in the Upper East Side. Aside, from that, we've done very little. And it's been magic.

Dyker Heights was incredible, and I think my father-in-law, who had indulged me in making the hour-long journey, enjoyed it more than he had expected. There were amazing National Lampoon-esque Christmas decorations, complete with a Times Square Elmo, who was charging a dollar to have his picture taken with children in front of the tackiest house.

The Met was the Met. Extremely busy but amazing. How can they transplant so much stuff and house it in one building? A huge Egyptian temple, a room full of armoured soldiers mounted on horses, a panoramic painting of the palace of Versailles (OK, not that impressive for Europeans who have been to the real thing). Quite incredible. But don't go during the holidays. Just don't. You'll want to punch a Spanish-speaking woman with three children... For instance...