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New York Today

New York Today: Times Critics Plan Your Holidays

This Met exhibition should impress the folks.Credit...Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Good morning on this bright Monday.

Nearly overnight, pine groves have sprouted on the sidewalks, pop-up markets have settled into plazas, and chestnuts are roasting on your neighborhood halal cart.

The holidays have arrived in New York.

And soon your mom, sister or cousin from Kalamazoo may arrive, too. But before you break out the blowup mattress, you’ll want to have a few things in mind to do with your houseguests.

For suggestions, we asked Times critics and writers where they would take family members this holiday season.

Theater. Ben Brantley, a Times theater critic, recommends “The Play That Goes Wrong,” at the Lyceum Theater. “It’s a nonstop exercise in ineptitude, as an amateur troupe tries (and fails) to stage a country-house murder mystery,” he told us. “Though its anarchic hilarity may try the patience of urbane adults, kids revel in its calculated chaos.” Performances run through Jan. 14. [Tickets start at $50]

Comedy. Jason Zinoman, who writes about comedy, said that those looking for a holiday tradition with more glamour than the usual fare should check out Sandra Bernhard’s annual cabaret show, called this year “Sandemonium.” “In her inimitable comic style, she mixes jokes, songs and gossip in a baggy, digression-filled performance, a one-woman variety show.” Dec. 26 to 31. [$65]

Classical music. Anthony Tommasini, the Times’s classical music critic, said two events came to mind, both organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One is a concert by the Baltimore Consort “playing Yuletide fare, including old and new versions of Renaissance carols and dances,” he said. The performance is in a chapel at the Met Cloisters, and you can take the kids for $1 each. Dec. 3 at 1 and 3 p.m. [$65]. For a more mature performance, he recommends David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Little Match Girl Passion,” based on a Hans Christian Andersen story. “A beautiful, very sad, but finally life-affirming piece.” The Met encourages parents to bring children to this event as well. Dec. 22 at 7 p.m. [$65]

For kids. Laurel Graeber, who writes about children’s events, told us that “as a die-hard Dickens fan,” she recommends the Morgan Library & Museum’s Winter Family Fair. It centers on the Morgan’s annual display of the original manuscript of “A Christmas Carol” and the exhibition “Charles Dickens and the Spirit of Christmas.” School-age visitors can meet actors portraying some of the story’s main characters and attend dramatized readings of excerpts from the book, she said, while little ones can dress up in period-style costumes and watch a screening of “The Muppet Christmas Carol.” “It’s fun and it’s literary.” Dec. 3 from 2 to 4:30 p.m. [$20 adults, free for children 12 and under]

Fine art. Holland Cotter, a Times art critic, suggests “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer” at the Met. The exhibition, he said, “is the once-in-a-lifetime show of the season. With more than 130 drawings by the beyond-famous artist, on loan from dozens of front-rank museums, it’s a monument to a monument, and absolutely gorgeous.” The exhibition runs through Feb. 21. [$25 suggested donation]

Here’s what else is happening:

The last week of November starts on a high note.

We’re looking at sunshine for the next two days and a high this afternoon around 47.

Tomorrow looks sunny as well, and temperatures should jump into the mid-50s.

City officials want to transform the Brooklyn transit hub, Broadway Junction, into a destination stop with restaurants, stores and other commuter-friendly amenities. [New York Times]

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New York City officials believe economic development around the station will help neighborhoods that have long struggled with unemployment, poverty and crime.

An upstate New York woman was fatally shot by a neighbor who mistook her for a deer. [New York Times]

Guilt-plagued evacuees who fled Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria wrestle with their decision to leave for the mainland. [New York Times]

After years in the United States, a tight-knit family confronts the holidays with its patriarch, an asylum-seeker, in jail awaiting deportation. [New York Times]

Though the trial is to take place in Manhattan, Turkish officials are watching closely as the U.S. prepares to try two prominent Turks. [New York Times]

Despite displacement by the war against Boko Haram, and a lack of food and water, a young Nigerian boy wants nothing more than to become a doctor in order to aid the sick. [New York Times]

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Usman Lawan, 13, in a bedroom he shares in Maiduguri, Nigeria, where his family has lived since fleeing Boko Haram in 2014.Credit...Juliette Delay, via International Rescue Committee

Subway riders will get the chance to see what it was like to ride the subway in another era, on this year’s nostalgia train. [AM New York]

A New York City college is battling with the Pentagon over exhibiting artwork created by suspected Qaeda terrorists. [New York Post]

Today’s Metropolitan Diary: “This Old Clock

For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Morning Briefing.

A tree lighting, holiday market, music, jugglers and stilt-walkers at the Winter’s Eve celebration in Dante Park, near Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side. 5:30 p.m. [Free]

A concert of new music performed by Broadway singers at the New York Library for the Performing Arts on the Upper West Side. 6 p.m. [Free]

The social media poets and astrologers Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky discuss their work at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library in Midtown. 6:30 p.m. [Free]

Learn self-defense at a pop-up gym at the Bluestockings Bookstore, Café & Activist Center on the Lower East Side. 7 to 9 p.m. [Free]

Devils host Panthers, 7 p.m. (MSG+). Knicks host Trail Blazers, 7:30 p.m. (MSG). Nets at Rockets, 8 p.m. (YES).

Alternate-side parking remains in effect until Dec. 8.

For more events, see The New York Times’s Arts & Entertainment guide.

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Who is helping in your community?Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

With the holidays ahead, our thoughts turn to how we can give back to our communities.

This year, at New York Today, we’re looking for charities, nonprofits and causes that are making a difference and helping the needy here in New York.

If you know of a philanthropy or group that is having great impact in its community, we’d love to hear about it.

Send an email to nytoday@nytimes.com and tell us the organization’s name, what they do, and why you think it’s important. We may contact the organization for an upcoming column.

New York Today is a morning roundup that is published weekdays at 6 a.m. If you don’t get it in your inbox already, you can sign up to receive it by email here.

For updates throughout the day, like us on Facebook.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com, or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Follow the New York Today columnists, Alexandra Levine and Jonathan Wolfe, on Twitter.

You can find the latest New York Today at nytoday.com.

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