Christmas In New York – Part 1

Since this original post was so overloaded with pics {your welcome!!!}, I’ve split it up into to parts, or day 1 and day 2!

Here’s day 1:
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.