Parks Department Offering Free Hot Chocolate, Sledding Today!

Courtesy Aonghais MacInnes's Flickr.

If only you'd stayed in school, you'd still be in bed right now. Then, around noon, you'd probably go frolic in today's winter wonderland, your carefree yelps of joy piercing the ears of bitter office drones stumbling through snowdrifts on their harried lunch breaks. And as if an entire day of unbridled freedom from tests and homework isn't enough of a gift, the Parks Department will be sweetening the deal today with "free winter fun" in all five boroughs. Sucks to have a job today!

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Parks Department will keep idle children off the streets by luring them into parks with the promise of free hot chocolate and sledding. Though this sounds like a clever ruse to round up youngsters into shoveling chain gangs, the press release says nothing about age restrictions on the free hot chocolate distribution. So review the list of locations below, and plan your lunch hour accordingly.