Getting Through the New York Holiday Season Without Drinking

The New York holiday season runs about six weeks and is structured almost entirely around alcohol. The office party, the friend's apartment, the industry thing, the neighborhood bar on the night everyone is back in town, the toast at midnight. For anyone who has stopped drinking, or is trying the season without it for the first time, the volume is the problem more than any single event.

The city is better equipped for this than it was five years ago. Here is what actually exists.

The non-alcoholic bottle shops

Manhattan and Brooklyn both carry dedicated non-alcoholic retail now, stocking zero-proof spirits, dealcoholized wine, and the functional and hop-forward category that has grown fastest. Bringing a good non-alcoholic bottle to a party solves the two hardest problems at once: you have something to drink, and you have something to hand the host, which ends the conversation about what you are drinking before it starts.

Where to actually go

The fall and winter calendar is full of events that were never about drinking in the first place, which makes them the useful ones:

• Bryant Park Winter Village, late October into early March. Free-admission rink, roughly 170 kiosks, and skating is free if you bring your own skates. The rink runs two months past the market's close, well into the dead part of winter.
• Union Square Holiday Market, mid-November to Christmas Eve. Around 150 vendors, and the food row at the 14th Street end is the reason to go hungry.
• The Village Halloween Parade, October 31, free from the sidewalk.
• Winter Restaurant Week, mid-January into early February. Prix-fixe across several hundred kitchens, and a dinner built around the food rather than the wine pairing is a materially cheaper dinner.
• The Lunar New Year Parade in Chinatown in February, opened by the Firecracker Ceremony in Sara D. Roosevelt Park.

Where cannabis fits, and where it does not

Some adults 21+ describe low-dose THC beverages as a way to hold something at a party without drinking. The category has grown fast in New York's licensed retail, and the products are more consistent than they were two years ago. A few things are worth being straight about:

• This is a substitution, not an exit. If the goal is stepping back from a substance rather than swapping one for another, that is worth naming honestly to yourself before the first party rather than in February.
• Dose discipline is harder at a party. Start low, go slow, and treat anything above 5mg at a social event as a decision rather than a default, particularly if you are used to the pace alcohol sets.
• The venue rules still apply. New York state law prohibits cannabis consumption on state-owned land and in public spaces, and a private party is the host's call, not yours.
• Buy licensed. Manhattan's unlicensed storefront population is large and looks identical from the street. Verify licensed status via the OCM QR code at cannabis.ny.gov.

The night that is actually hard

For most people it is not the party. It is December 31, and it is Times Square specifically: pens opening in the early afternoon, no re-entry, no seating, no restrooms, and nothing to do for eight hours. The Brooklyn fireworks at Grand Army Plaza, a dinner reservation, or being home by ten are all better answers, and none of them require explaining yourself.

January is easier. The city empties out, Restaurant Week starts, and the entire social calendar stops assuming a drink is the reason people met up.

More of what is running this season is on the events hub.