Holidays

Families in Williamsburg are getting ready for Passover. This year, city health officials are worried that something much more serious than matzah will be passed around the table: measles.

Sukanya Krishnan and Jenn Lahmers took a tour of Gracie Mansion decorated for the holiday season.

Fresh-cut Christmas trees and thousands of holiday letters, decorations and gifts on trucks motorcaded to Kennedy Airport and were then hand-packed onto a plane headed to the Middle East. Operation Holiday Cheer is now in its 15th year. With the help of DHL, Dees' Nursery has donated and sent more than 10,000 trees and trimmings to U.S. servicemen and women stationed throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thousands came out in the chilly weather to watch the inflation of the balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Players for the Boston Bruins to the Green Bay Packers and the Washington Redskins are unapologetically wearing Christmas-themed suits splashed with holiday cheer.

From the moment you walk through the door of Rolf's, you know this is no ordinary restaurant. There's lots of looking up and pretty quickly, the cameras come out. It is spectacular. It has more than 5,000 ornaments and 150,000 lights.

It's a hot topic every holiday season: who should you tip and how much should you give? Thomas Farley, an etiquette expert known as Mister Manners, says the best rule of thumb is to start with the people you're accustomed to tipping during the year. That includes service professionals like your hair colorist, hair stylist, massage therapist, and even your acupuncturist.

Hanukkah is the Jewish festival of lights. Different from Christmas, the date changes each year. But what doesn't is the number of nights.

The holiday windows at Lord and Taylor are a tradition that date back to 1937. Unlike other retailers, Lord and Taylor considers the windows a gift to the city so commercial products are never included in the animated displays. This year, the theme is "The best and the brightest."

Every holiday gift-giving season toy stores stuff shopping bags full of familiar-looking containers of Legos, Nerf guns, Play-Doh, Barbies, and Hot Wheels. But every year one must-have new-coming one-season-wonder joins those staples. This year the honor seems to be going to Fingerlings.

In what seems like an effort to be politically correct, the Levittown School District on Long Island has offended some of its community members. The controversy sparked over this year's school calendar. The hard copies were mailed to parents this week. On holidays – including Thanksgiving and Columbus Day -- the square simply reads "No school."