Hey Friends!  I am SO happy to be able to share with y’all our fun adventure to The Big Apple…at Christmas time!

It was a super fast trip for us, and I’m going to do my bestest at reliving it all for you, via jpeg! :)

First, I have to tell you that while Andrew was trying to upload all his pics to Google+, he deleted them off his phone.  So we had a bit of a mourning session Saturday morning when he realized they were all GONE.  Thankfully, we’d only taken a few selfies with his phone…oh, and all the footage he’d gotten of me figure ice skating is gone too…so that was kind of sad…  I did, however, text a few pics to myself so that I could send them to my mom while we were there so I have a couple.

 

Ok, so here goes.  Monday after work we drove to GA to drop off the kiddos.  My parents are pretty much amazing and this makes the second time this year that they’ve kept our kids for us so that we could go on a trip {Andrew and I know how important it is for us to have time together just the two of us}.

Tuesday evening was our flight.  As we had planned out this trip back in September, Andrew had stated that he wanted to wake up in the city.  So we left Tuesday night.  Of course our flight was delayed…by about three hours…

We landed at LaGuardia airport literally at midnight.

We’d gotten to my parents’ house the night before after 11pm.  We were so exhausted; we literally shut the NYC airport down.  The workers who were still hanging out at the baggage claim desk were all saying that they could now go home and “Good night!” to each other after we all claimed our luggage.

So we woke up in the city and the first thing on our list was Rockefeller Center to see the tree.

But wait, an important phone call…

It is so beyond incredible.  Wait until you see the night-time photos {keep scrolling!!}. 

 

Up from Rockefeller Center is 5th Avenue…which is donned with lovely shops like this Saks Fifth Avenue…and her castle on the outside, and window displays beyond your most beautiful imagination!

After a brief stroll past Saks, we made our way down towards Radio City because we caught the 11am Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes show!

Just a few lights on our way…

Inside, the delicate crystal Christmas tree was insanely gorgeous!

The music hall was lit up with giant snowflakes on the ceiling!

Not a very good photo, but for part of the show we had to wear 3-D glasses!

The music was so fantastic, at times we forgot it was an actual orchestra {they were lifted on a platform for the very beginning, then sank down into the pit}.

These costumes….they were awesome!

They were amazing…simply amazing.  I loved every bit of this show!

The precision of these Toy Soldiers was impeccable!!!

Up for a little sight-seeing?

The Santa number was just too great!  I’m not sure who loved it more, the kids or the adults!

Ok, so the graphics were insane during the show…but for this snowflake number, there were these huge clear beach balls with snowflakes in them that were radio-controlled.  I can’t even.  Meanwhile, look at the background of the picture above ↑ and compare it to the one below ↓.  See.  graphics.  insane.  {sorry the one below is a little wonky…not sure what happened there}

And then we get to the true meaning of Christmas…the Nativity.

I’m not kidding when I tell you…Andrew looked at me and said: “THAT is a live camel.  A real-life camel.”

Yep.

I absolutely love this scene…complete with real sheep, donkeys and camels…

The finale…

When I tell y’all that this show was great…IT. WAS. GREAT.  It went by so fast, was full of music and fun…AND it held the Nativity story, which was just Spectacular!  If you go to NYC at Christmas, you have to go…it’s just so good!

 

After the show we walked back up to 5th Avenue and ventured into St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  It seemed to be a thing…everyone was going in, so we sort of felt like we had to…  Turns out, mass was about to start! ha!  Anyway, enjoy a few snaps I got of this gorgeous structure!

One thing I didn’t get a photo of were all the Salvation Army folks – they were either playing their own musical instruments or had some great Christmas music or Kirk Franklin {are you with me?!} playing on a sweet boom-box…and they were dancing!!  So good.  Only in NYC!

The NY Library and Bryant Park were next.

There was a part during the Christmas Spectacular that Santa threw the wreaths onto the necks of the lions…this was just too fun!  And yes, they are massive!!

The tree at Bryant Park was just glorious in red, white and blue!

We thought about ice skating here, but it was so incredible crowded…all the time!  I don’t know if you can see it or not, but towards the bottom, there’s a little girl skating, holding on to a penguin {above the guy in the blue jacket looking at his fancy camera…}.  This was so cool!  We saw it closer the next night, but they had these penguins for beginner {kids} skaters…it glided along the ice, while holding the kids up.  Anyway, I thought it was pretty great!

These men…they were playing cards and in my mind, they are all named “Sal” :)

Bryant Park was just down the street from where we stayed when we went to NYC back in 2012.  It was the place we went almost every night while we were there.  We would have a drink and sit and watch the city move…  It was so great to be back there seeing how it morphs into this great shopping venue meets fantastic food, mixed in with ice skating.

 

On our way back to the hotel for a little respite before the event that this entire trip was made for, we stayed on 5th Avenue.  Everything I’d seen told me that we had to see the window displays…and it was all worth it!

Lord & Taylor…we could see her from afar.  We took a few daytime photos, but they were lost…Here’s what it looked like under the canopy of lights

And the windows…

The Advent calendar….where all the windows were NOT all opened at the same time {made for taking a photo rather difficult and yet, fun?!}

This one is for Reynolds…the kid loves an owl.

And seriously, the details of this clock are ridiculous.

I just wanted this red dress

Gingerbread men dancing with a house on their heads…bahaha

And the confection shop…

What fun our first day had been so far!

Oh, and this was hilarious.  There was a group of Asian people wanting to take photos with these police officers right outside the Empire State Building…and 20 feet from them there were Asian NYC cops…it was funny.

As I posted on Facebook Wednesday night, the entire reason we booked this trip was to see Andrea Bocelli at Madison Square Garden…it was all Andrew’s idea.  Back in September or whenever it was, he asked me if I had the choice between Vegas, Chicago or New York City, which would I choose.  Well you can take Vegas and throw it in the trash for all I care {I mean it’s fine, but it’s not fore me} and then it came down to when.  When Andrew said “December” it was a complete hands-down winner for NYC.  We’d never been at Christmas and I’d heard so much about how beautiful and magical it is…so we checked flights and hotels and got some incredible deals so we booked it and then got our tickets to the concert.

 

We ate dinner at an amazing little French place called OCabanon.  Does anyone else think it funny that we ate French food before hearing an Italian sing?

The food was insane.  Insane.  Fresh pasta, or “noodles” as I called them.  Best seafood pasta I’ve ever had.  Best noodles ever.  Andrew asked at the end of our trip which meal was my favorite, I said the seafood pasta.  When I turned the question on him, he laughed and said, “your seafood pasta! Those noodles!”

On our way to the concert we stopped into a little local place across from the venue for a drink and it was beyond slammed.  Everyone was talking about the concert – everyone was going.

He has the voice of a tenor angel.

We were told that photography/videography was strictly prohibited…

I saw phones everywhere…people were not obeying the rule.

I mean, we were in the stinking nose-bleeds.  It’s not like I was going to get a close up of any possible blemish and blast it all over social media.

The concert was simply fantastic.  He had several guest singers, a violinist and flutist.  All completely incredible.

It was such a fun night for us to be there with all these New Yorkers…Italian New Yorkers who were just loving every bit of this man.  And in spite of his blindness, he could feel the love from this enormous audience.  I don’t think there was an empty seat in the place.

We would not let him leave.  I think he did four encores.  And when he sang Frank Sinatra’s “New York New York” the crowd went bonkers!

My favorite, which he did not leave out, but was at the very end, was “The Prayer”.

We sat until the place was almost empty, thankful to have been a part of the fun evening for all of these “locals”.

The end of day 1 was amazing.

I give you a selfie with our neighborhood clock tower in the background.

 

Day 2.

Who can go to NYC and not try to get on The Today Show?

Not us!

Al was outside more than all the others.  We were a little late getting there so we were about three rows back and I’m quite certain we did NOT make it on television for our 15 seconds of fame, or whatever it is now.

But.  It was fun to see the crew, including Wrangler.

And Thursday the selfie stick was in hand…so selfie #1

On to Central Park or if you’ve seen “Date Night” – “THE Central Park!”

My short list of activities/things to see/do included ice skating in Central Park.  Funny thing was when we asked the front desk person at our hotel they didn’t even know about it.  Wollman Rink is just inside the south end of the park…  And honestly as magical as the thought of ice skating in Central Park sounded…the reality of it was so much more so.

When we got to the rink it was just before 9:30am…it didn’t open until 10 so we took a stroll up the path, sat down on a bench and watched the world go by.  I was fascinated by the number of languages I heard while sitting on that bench for just a few minutes.  Andrew and I played the “Date Night” game – What’s the Story?  to try to figure out where people were from, what they were doing, where they were going, etc.

Back down at the rink around 9:45 the line was starting to form so we joined in.

Laced up and ready to go!

I think you can tell from our faces that we were pretty excited to be there.  We had the most fun.  I only busted my tail once, when I took my eyes off the horizon and tried to take a video of Andrew!  But it was so worth it!

We left the rink when the school buses dropped off about 50 kids who had never skated before.  They were all doing that scream-laugh that’s really hilarious at first and then well, it just gets loud with that many kids and the magical hour of skating just became LOUD.   We did, however, sit and watch them all clinging to the wall laughing and yelling at each other in terrified glee.  It was great.

After we left the rink we were bound for some food.  Wouldn’t you know it, we stumbled upon another set of these pop-up shops that are seemingly in every park of NYC at Christmas…

Andrew was fancying an empanada so we pulled up to this bright orange bench and enjoyed the scenery and a really delicious bit of chicken pastry.

Next we continued our stroll looking for the restaurant district…which we discovered wasn’t quite where we’d been told it was…and then, on the right hand side of the road was…

Tavern On The Green.

Ok, so three and a half years ago when we were in NYC, it was closed – due to renovations.  Others said it was permanently closed.  So when it wasn’t showing up on my map, I thought it WAS closed.

We walked up the back, there was a man in white cleaning off the side walk…”hmm, I mean, I guess it could be open, but there are no cars…”

We continued to the front and saw this beautiful red berry tree…

It is stunning on the inside.  I have no idea of what it looked like before but this was completely gorgeous!

And then we ate really amazing food…

We had to get a pic in front of their tree :)

I think at this point I posted on FB that it had been a magical day thus far…it really had been.

As we sort of made our way back thru midtown, we went thru Times Square.

This billboard was fantastic.

We made a pit-stop in the Disney store to pick up a few sursies for Reynolds and Eliza Jane.

Do you see us?

First CFA – it’s two stories and the line of customers was out the door and around the corner…the best thing that ever happened to NYC!

Macy’s and their Peanuts window displays {night time photos are below – KEEP scrolling!!!}

A really cool walkway…

For all of our friends that told us to eat pizza…Waldy’s was AMAZING!!!! $8 for a pizza and it was delicious!  Oh, and a soda came with it!  WHAT?!

After the pizza we went to our room and Andrew took a nap while I worked for about an hour.

The last thing on our short list was to see Rockefeller Center all lit up at night.

First, Eataly.  If you’ve ever been, you know how amazing this place is.  I literally could wander around for hours.  HOURS.

Pasta, pasta and MORE pasta!!!!

Say cheeeeeessssseeee!

And this one was for Reynolds…yes, Nutella goes with everything!  An entire section dedicated to all of your Nutella dreams…

Next stop, Saks Fifth Avenue…remember the photo from the very beginning – the castle on the outside of their beautiful 5th Avenue store?  Meet their light show!

The lights of course were set to music and yes, I did take a video while we stood on the corner with a thousand of our closest friends…and completely in awe of this beautiful sight!

The Rockefeller Plaza and the tree.

Oh, and about as soon as we took our selfie and I got this really great shot of the tree, this happened…

Anyone wanting to propose at Christmas time, this guy just raised the bar for you.

Hello?!  Private skating in RC…with thousands of people gasping and then screaming and clapping in joyful celebration along with you?!  Bless.

The soldiers were a favorite…

On to Times Square where things got a little interesting.  First of all…see all the ruffles of pretty colors in the photo below?  This, er, individual was laying on the ground.  And then there in the corner of Walgreens there started a little scuffle between another person and a few NYPD officers.  So then the ruffled mass got up with all his belongings and moved closer.  At this point, I wanted to run for my life, unsure of what was about to happen with the scuffle in the corner {it was loud…}.  Andrew?  No.  No, Andrew wanted to go closer.  And he did, while I clung to my selfie stick ready to start swinging…

Thankful for the officers that subdued the troublemaker and allowed us tourists to continue as we were. :)

Another one for R.

{I’m sorry if you’re bored at this point..but really, you shouldn’t be!!!  It’s almost over, just a few more pics!}

Ok, so after the thing with the dude and the officers, I was ready to go somewhere less exciting.  Like Bryant Park.

I’m telling y’all…this place…the skating rink was always packed!!  We sat down and watched the experts and the beginners.  We laughed, we “ooohhhh”‘d with them…it was such fun.

Looking back towards Times Square…the lights…it’s just so bright!

I had heard that the Empire State Building would be lit up in red and green…this is not red or green or even a combination thereof…

But still, it was pretty!

Back in front of Macy’s and their window displays of scenes from Peanuts!

They were so cute!

On our quest for dinner we were trying to decide what nationality we’d not visited for food and somehow we’d totally missed Italian…back to Eataly for our last meal in NYC and it was fantastic!

One random photo for you, from the subway

And that’s it, friends!!!!  I hope you enjoyed your jpeg tour of NYC at Christmas!  We loved every minute of being there.  We saw all the things we wanted to see and did all the things we wanted to do in our short stay.

If you’re going this year or any year for that matter…at Christmas, see the lights, see 5th Avenue, GO to the Rockettes AND ice skate!  Either in Central Park or Bryant Park {but go early!!!}.

Thanks for being so fun and allowing me to share this adventure with you!