Then I remembered what a friend of mine told me a couple of years’ back. You can pretty much live for weeks on 86th Street (where I live) and a few surrounding blocks. Christmas wasn’t going to be canceled; it was simply going to be condensed. My mother and I would have a wonderful week together, with only my knowledge of the area, and her cane, to guide us. Here’s what we both discovered, in my own backyard.

Shopping: Mom’s a last-minute shopper no matter where she is, and she arrived with lists for everyone. What to do? Voila! Banana Republic on 86th Street and Third. She loved shopping there, in part because the clothes are wonderful, but mostly because she’s also a wrong-size shopper, and gift receipts were proffered in every package. Then we hit Baby Gap, around the corner on Third (right past Modell’s), so she could pick out a cute little cocktail dress for my best friend’s new baby girl. We then moved right to Best Buy, PC Richards, Laytner’s, and Barnes & Noble (all in a two-block radius on 86th), where Mom got a the new iPod and DVDs, A DVD player, bed sheets and shams, and wrapping paper, respectively. And all of this before lunch—we settled for Starbucks coffee and lemon tarts on the second floor of B&N.

Food: Mom loves to cook almost as much as I love to eat, and she’d arrived with all sorts of menu ideas. Before I even had a chance to say, “Zabaars is out,” she’d hit Tal Bagels on 86th and First (my sister had already sent me lox), Gristedes and Food Emporium (86th and First and Second Avenue, respectively), both of which blew her away with 24/7 shopping, the German deli Schaller and Weber on Second and 86th (I’ve still got frankfurters in my fridge, along with several bars of Marzipan, which, according to Mom, is an absolute candy find even though it’s incredibly expensive and no one likes it). And though I’d promised Mom I’d take her out to dinner in SoHo on her first night, we made do with Inn (86th and First), a charming little Continental restaurant that seems plucked right out of Bridgehampton. Afterwards, I managed to squeeze us through the doors of Elaine’s, on 2nd, just long enough to show Mom where Woody and Liza hang their hats. It didn’t matter that we were quietly escorted out when I said we just needed to use the rest rooms: Mom had gotten this close to two of New York’s most prominent residents. She’s still spreading the word.

Entertainment: This was tough: The two Christmas parties I’d been planning to take her to (one in the West Village and one in Tribeca) had both been canceled because of the strike. I was stumped. On Mom’s second day here, however, she escorted me and my dog to the Carl Shurz Park at the end of 86th Street. The weather was mild, the sun was out, and Mom was in heaven. As my pug frolicked, she gazed out over the water and declared this just about the most beautiful spot she’d ever seen in New York—the cute male joggers along the promenade helped. We then strolled over to Gracie Mansion (Mom had heard about Bloomberg’s listed phone number and thought the same might work if she knocked on the door.) Even though that failed, she was stunned that the mayor’s home was so close to mine, and so accessible to the public. By the time nightfall hit, Mom was ready to call it quits, but I felt I had to come up with something. After getting a few treadmill laps in at Equinox Gym on 85th and Second—mom stayed home and snacked on street-vendor pralines), I took her to the 7:20 showing of Brokeback Mountain at the United Artists East theater (85th and First), which afforded her the rare opportunity to watch a movie in a single-screen theater, and to do so with an audience that didn’t snicker at gay kissing, neither of which is common back in suburban California movie houses. Weeks later, she’s not talking about the film’s subject matter; she only mentions the fact that the audience was so wonderfully quiet.