Today’s Update Journal is all about wishlists — the ones the city makes, and the ones parents secretly sabotage. On one hand, we’ve got MTA chief Janno Lieber rolling out his 2026 transit wishlist like a kid circling every single toy in the December catalog: more service, better reliability, maybe a miracle or two if the budget elves cooperate. It’s ambitious. It’s hopeful. It’s… probably going to run into reality by spring. And on the other hand, today’s Honorable Mention reveals that parents are now hiding gifts inside decoy gifts to keep Christmas morning magical. These folks are running an undercover operation that makes NYPD Intel look amateur. You’ve got parents stashing Nintendo Switches inside cereal boxes, Barbie dolls in vacuum cleaner packaging, and one parent probably putting an iPad inside a pack of socks just to keep the element of surprise alive. Transit dreams. Christmas schemes. Only in New York could those two things make perfect sense in the same show.

In the headlines on #TheUpdate this Thursday, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, an icon of New York City’s holiday season, was lit up in midtown Manhattan as crowds of people wearing Santa hats and Christmas light necklaces cheered.

A man who wore a clown mask and brandished a chain saw during a frightful episode in an upstate New York neighborhood was convicted of two felony charges.

And in Washington, the Pentagon knew there were survivors after a September attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea and the U.S. military still carried out a follow-up strike, according to two people familiar with the matter.