I have lived in London for three and a half years but it’s almost become a tradition not to spend Christmas here. The first year we wanted a traditional, white Christmas, a prospect that seemed fairly unlikely in England, so we went to the the Austrian Alps to ensure we had our quota of white stuff and tradition. The second year we went home to see our families in Australia, for plenty of sunshine, fresh seafood, barbecues in the backyard and swimming in the ocean. Then last year we went to Tunisia and spent Christmas Day eating fresh dates and watching camel races in Douz, an oasis town in the Sahara desert.

This year we are heading abroad once again - across the Atlantic to New York. We are staying with friends in Brooklyn and the US dollar is at an all-time low so our pounds should stretch a fair way. We will be gone for two weeks and hopefully we should make it down to Washington DC for a few days as well.

So what shall we do in New York? We have been to New York before so we won’t be taking a tick-box approach, though there are some things that simply must be done, such as drinking Manhattans in Manhattan, seeing a show on Broadway, and going back to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We are there for Christmas and New Year so there’ll be giant Christmas trees, ice skating, fire works, and shopping in the post-Christmas sales.

This will be my first time in Brooklyn, rather than Manhattan, and I’ve heard lots of good things about it, so getting to know Brooklyn is top of the agenda. But we’ve got plenty of time and I’m open to suggestions. What are your must-dos and secret haunts? Any suggestions for Christmas Day itself, since our friends will be out of town?

And of course there’s our planned side trip to Washington DC… We’ve never been before so we’ll be doing the tourist thing and checking out the White House and the Capitol and so on. I’m told about three days should be ample and we plan to travel down by train. Any recommendations on hotels?