But there were also other rituals to be followed: Thousands of oft-disappointed but resolute Knicks fans steeled themselves for the team’s almost-annual Christmas Day game, this year against the Milwaukee Bucks. Some families flocked to homeless shelters and soup kitchens, including local politicians, who donned plastic aprons and spooned out yellow rice and collard greens at a must-stop event in Harlem.

And of course, Chinese restaurants in every corner of the city were preparing for one of their busiest days of the year, when people stand in line for hours in the cold for soup dumplings and Peking duck after a trip to the movies.

There were no lines at China Glatt, Borough Park’s main Chinese restaurant.

Around noon, orders started to roll in for chicken and broccoli with brown rice. It was a perfectly unremarkable lunch service.

A man came out of the kitchen, sipping egg drop soup. Efraim P., who declined to give his last name because he did not have his boss’s permission, is a mashgiach, or an inspector of food in kosher restaurants. He had just finished his morning routine of picking over the restaurant’s new deliveries of potatoes, carrots and frozen french fries.

“We appreciate the American holiday, we acknowledge that it’s there, but for us life goes on,” he said.