Secret Santa

Again, I asked Suldog to forgive me.  I am not advertising for the other holiday that comes AFTER our mutual favorite of Thanksgiving.  However, Mr. Lime was handed an envelope last week at work.  He was told it was from his Secret Santa.  He protested that names hadn't been exchanged yet.  The person giving the envelope repeated firmly, "This...is...from...your...Secret...Santa."  He brought it home and we found tucked inside two tickets to Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular and a gift card with some spending money.  We were both quite surprised by this generous gift.  The tickets were for the show yesterday....so ya know, since it was a gift generously given by an anonymous benefactor we didn't really have any say in the date and we are not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth we took the tickets and headed off to NYC to see the show.  We had perfect late November weather so the walk from Penn Station to Radio City Music Hall was quite nice.  Of course Boom-boom came along with me.



After the show we were hungry.  Mr. Lime was ready to start chewing buildings and would have eaten just about anywhere but was nice enough to tell me to pick the restaurant.  I have no interest in eating at some chain that has the same food in 150 locations across the US.  We also needed it to be reasonably priced.  This place looked interesting and affordable for two...as far as NYC prices go.  So in we went.





The Stardust Diner has singing wait staff.  Given that it's located in Times Square just off Broadway it makes sense.  It also makes for a lot of fun.  Each of the wait staff takes turns singing a song in between waiting tables.  They are really hopping in there so there's no rest.  The non-performing busboys are no slouches either.  It may be a touristy sort of thing but it seemed uniquely Broadway and I'd recommend it.  They do pass around a bucket and request tips for the wait staff to be able to continue taking voice and acting classes as they all aspire to leave the restaurant and make it to Broadway.  Yep, we threw a tip in the bucket.  I couldn't resist, they gave good service, with a smile, and they entertained us too.


On the way back to Penn Station we wandered across this street performer.  We caught the very last bit in his act.  He and his partner had a big build-up to it and were very funny guys.  So what do you think, will he clear all seven people?

 Nobody moves! Nobody gets hurt!

Ta-da!!!  He made it.  Yeah, I put some money in...erm....well.....uh....when they walked around with their bag for collecting I waved a couple bills from inside the crowd and the partner instead pulled out his waistband for me to tuck it in there.  I laughed like a loon, tucked it in there, and was treated to....ahem...an unexpected dance. 






So yeah, it was a terrific day all the way around.  A very early Secret Santa simply gave us one more thing we will be giving thanks for this week.