For the last ten years of my relationship Joe, my boyfriend, and I have gone on an annual Christmas date. The first few years that meant going to which ever ice skating rink in the city had the best hours on the day we were both free and then finding any restaurant near by. We have become a bit more organized since then picking the perfect restaurant making reservations weeks in advance and alternating on rinks because we can’t agree on a favorite! Mine’s Bryant Park, his is Central Park.
The first and most important part of planning your date is picking the restaurant, there are a few key things I look for when deciding are, obviously the food, decor, location, and the potential to become a special place. When narrowing down based on food I will think of places I have eaten in the past that I really enjoyed and I will go through sites such as Open Table or Yelp and sort through reviews. Once I have narrowed that list I will google them see if there are any interior shots of their holiday decor. If they have great decor someone most likely will have taken a picture of it at some point, or since I do quite a lot of wandering looking at decorations around the city I often will remember if I saw a place decorated particularly well! From there we narrow places down based on how central it is too all the skating rinks, if you live in a place where driving and parking isn’t horrendous this step might be less important, but you also might not want to have to travel too far. The final thing I take into consideration is if I go there for other traditional events such as, a girls holiday dinner, or Christmas Eve lunch with my family. These steps helped lead Joe and I to our now traditional Christmas restaurant.
After you have picked where you are going to eat we get to the activity portion of the evening! This obviously will differ based on location and personal preference, I like to go skating, but I do realize depending where you live you might not have access to this. So, other options can be finding a theater playing a classic Christmas film, going to a holiday market, or a cozy movie night at home with snuggles and hot chocolate. But deciding on this early is a good idea because you want to make sure you make dinner reservations at the right time, so you have plenty of time to do what you choose either before or after you eat!
I hope this helped you out!