It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC. Good morning. I'm David First, WNYC's weekend edition host, filling in for Brian.

And now we continue our WNYC Centennial Series 100 Years of 100 Things.

And we've made it up to Thing 48, 100 years of New York City Christmas traditions.

Our guide for this is Valerie Paley, former chief historian at New York Historical.

Now senior vice president and director of its library, as well as the founding director of its Center for Women's History, and we are told its resident expert on Christmas traditions in New York. Welcome.

Thank you, Dachish. Justified title there?

I don't know.

I think that it would compete with that mantle, but I'm here with you today.

It's great to have you with us.

And listeners from Midtown's Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade that ushers in Santa Claus to the Rockettes, the Rockefeller Center tree, to the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center.

I mean, there's a reason why we have so many gridlock alert days around the holidays as families

are traveling to all of the hotspots in the city to keep their traditions going.

Let's hear your oral histories of how these places and performances have become secular family Christmas rituals.

Or maybe your family has other special Christmas displays that you go to check out or shows that you leave home for every year.

Yes, we are focusing on the secular or commercial, not the religious side of the holiday today.

Tell us your story.

212-433 W-NYC.

That's 212-433-9-692.

You can call or text.

And Valerie, since we're talking about Christmas in New York City, before we get to the 20th century items I mentioned, can we start a bit before 1924 and acknowledge how much the country owes to New York in how Christmas is celebrated, especially when it comes to Santa Claus?

Oh, absolutely. And now you're in my wheelhouse because I was told it was only the last

hundred years, but I represent New York's first museum, which just celebrated its 220th anniversary.

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