Our New Kind of Christmas Eve at Sons of Essex

Alan and I weren't able to spend the Christmas holiday with our families this year so instead and to avoid feeling blue from missed traditions, we thought that we would do something completely different than what we're used to. I threw on my Jack Wills furry snood and Alan his Antarctica-grade jacket and we headed to the Lower East Side for a little adventure!

Sons of Essex with its cool old school New York vibe promised a screening of The Christmas Story along with a special Chinese menu that paid homage to the restaurant's past life as a Jewish eatery.

Apparently the owners, the Bernsteins, had an annual tradition of eating Chinese food during the Christmas holiday. If you're not celebrating Christmas, what else is open after all?

Seated at a cozy corner table, buzzed from too many champagne cocktails, we enjoyed duck confit fried rice, steamed pork belly buns, egg rolls, and beef and broccoli while a Christmas movie played on a projector.

Silent Night on the playlist? Think Big Pun and various 90s rappers. How is that for a Christmas Eve? Even though we missed our usual traditions, it was really fun trying something new, and perhaps we even made a few new traditions of our own! I hope y'all had an amazing holiday, however you chose to celebrate it :)

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