Dinner & a Movie

The homestretch is approaching: Christmas is just days away. If you have visitors coming to town, this weekend is the perfect time to enjoy the city's colorful Christmas decorations. When you're done giving a tour of the scenery, we suggest grabbing a bite nearby, and going to see "This Christmas" (2007) in Times Square.

DINNER

Here's a game plan: Get to Herald Square, grab a coffee, walk into Macy's, and pause. Look up — and start walking. What's lost in that store during the bustle of holiday shopping are the great decorations: the huge poinsettias overflowing with red and yellow leaves from the ceiling alcoves, the countless wreaths bowed in red and lit with gold, and the trees decorated with shiny silver acorns. For lunch or dinner, Koreatown is a mere four blocks away. Mandoo Bar is a favorite restaurant among locals of Korean descent, with ladies dressed in aprons folding fresh pork dumplings in the front windows. All the dumpling platters are solid, but for more variety, try the Mandoo ramen, a spicy soup with pork dumplings and ramen noodles, topped with an egg that cooks in the piquant broth. (2 W. 32nd St., between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, 212-279-3075)

You've avoided Rockefeller Center the whole month — fearing for your credit card bill and your body. But over the weekend, you can take the opportunity to see the famed Rockefeller Center tree: Your heart, your joy, and your spirits will thank you as you watch the ice skaters spin around the enormous Norway spruce. After you peel yourself away, steal over to Brasserie Ruhlmann, named for the Art Deco designer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann. The menu, tended to by executive chef Laurent Tourondel of the BLT restaurant empire, is organized in typical brasserie style, offering a plateau de fruits de mer and various plats du jour, which on the weekends include tuna basquaise and bavette a l'echalote, a grilled skirt steak with sautéed shallots. One dish that carries a Tourondel-BLT touch is the lobster club, a spin on the traditional sandwich that includes lime-curry mayonnaise.

(45 Rockefeller Plaza, 50th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 212-974-2020)

MOVIE

So you've seen the decorations, and you've eaten a festive meal. How can you top that off? Director Preston Whitmore's "This Christmas" could be the icing on your fruitcake. The film stars Chris Brown (a talented R&B star offscreen), as a member of the Whitfield family. At Christmas, the family gets together, with all siblings in tow, for the first time in years. As they usually do, tensions rise to the surface with disagreements about how the family dry cleaning business is run, and how significant others are received, and why one brother is AWOL from the Marines. But those predicaments are resolved just in time for the holidays, with uplifting scenes of Mr. Brown singing in a choir, and the Whitfield family laughing — and fighting — at the Christmas feast. (Friday, 7:45 p.m., Regal E-Walk 13, 247 W. 42nd St., between Seventh and Eighth avenues, 212-505-6397, $10.50)

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