So why did we go to the busiest city in the world during the busiest time of the year? Because if you want to see New York City decorated for Christmas, then you have to go to New York City at Christmas time. I have wanted to see NYC at Christmas for as long as I can remember - the Rockettes, the tree, and the windows always sounded so magical!
We had a bit of a delay at the Chicago airport getting to NYC. For about an hour, we weren't even sure if we were going to make it - we were on the final NYC flight on Friday night, the plane had mechanical difficulties and all flights leaving the next day were completely booked. Luckily we left after a 2 hour delay. We were supposed to get to our hotel at about 1am, and instead we got there at 3am. But we didn't let that stop us from all that we had to see, we just did it on less sleep than we wanted!
SATURDAY
BREAKFAST AT NORMA'S IN LE PARKER MERIDIAN : ICE SKATING IN CENTRAL PARK : BARNEY'S WINDOWS : BLOOMINGDALE'S WINDOWS : DYLAN'S CANDY BAR : BERGDORF GOODMAN WINDOWS : TIFFANY'S WINDOWS : SAKS 5TH AVENUE WINDOWS : ROCKEFELLER CENTER TREE : TIMES SQUARE : ALADDIN ON BROADWAY : M&MS STORE
The last time we were in NYC we ate breakfast at Norma's in Le Parker Meridian Hotel twice, and we were sure to eat there again this trip - delicious! We recommend the Very Berry French Toast or their Crunchy French Toast. While waiting for our table, we enjoyed the dozen gingerbread house displays around the hotel - they were so detailed!
By far the highlight of the entire vacation - ice skating with the kids in Central Park. Beautiful rink, beautiful scenery - one side park and the other side skyscrapers, not too crowded, family friendly, and overall a fantastic time! A memory to forever cherish.
In Central Park with the Plaza Hotel in the background.
Barney's Christmas windows were decorated in a form of Steam Punk, with a live ice skater who performed every 15 minutes. She even did flips and spins in her very tiny rink! Unfortunately, this was the very first Christmas window we saw, so at every other window, the kids would say "this is nice, but they used mannequins instead of live people". Keep in mind that for every Christmas window we saw, we were about 5 people deep away from the window, standing on our tiptoes and holding the camera above our head to angle a picture. However, Ethan loved that kids were given a free pass to elbow their way up to the front of each window. Each store also had about 5-6 decorated windows, but I only included 1-2 from each store.
The happiest place on earth according to Ethan - Dylan's Candy Bar.
Bloomingdale's windows were interactive with the crowd - you could text the number listed on the window and it would interact with you - some were "photo booths", some were video games, etc.
Bergdorf Goodman's windows were very classy and shiny Christmas scenes.
Tiffany's building all decorated, including their snowflake over the street.
We ate a very fast lunch in the Trump Plaza food court, which was also beautifully decorated.
The Saks 5th Avenue windows were decorated with fairy tales. The one below shows Snow White. These were some of my favorite windows on the trip. This is also where we noticed the crowds beginning to get much larger! Overall, there were heavy crowds everywhere, with the absolute worst crowd at the Rockefeller tree. Despite that, we were able to see everything we had hoped to see.
The Rockefeller Christmas Tree! While the entire plaza was beautiful with the angels, the rink, and the tree, the crowds were absolutely insane! From what we could see, there was one entrance and two exits, and thousands of people attempting to navigate their way through to get the perfect picture.
It was NOT easy to get any family photos with the tree as a background!
Times Square.
We all agreed that seeing Aladdin on Broadway was our second favorite part of the trip (behind ice skating). I cannot begin to tell you how unbelievably good the genie was in this production - he completely deserved his Tony award! If anyone is planning a NYC vacation while the original genie is still with the production, we highly recommend seeing this show!
We had tried to go to the M&Ms store in Times Square before Aladdin, but the line to get in stretched for over a block! So after Aladdin at 11pm we decided to go - and the store was still packed but no line. Here is Olivia imitating Ms. Brown.
And Ethan with his favorite M&M color.
Times Square at midnight on a Saturday. It was PACKED (maybe partly because we were there during Santa Con??? That was interesting for the kids to see!).
The fantastic view of Times Square from our hotel room in Novotel Hotel.
SUNDAY
MURRAY'S BAGELS : ROCKETTES AT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL : CITY BAKERY : BRYANT PARK : NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY : GRAND CENTRAL STATION : LORD AND TAYLOR WINDOWS : MACY'S WINDOWS : KNICKS VS. RAPTORS AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
Olivia LOVES to get her "bagel with a schmear" at Murray's Bagels.
I have always wanted to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall!
The beautiful lobby of RCMH. We even arrived early enough that we were able to get a picture with a Rockette!
The Christmas Spectacular show was very good (although I will admit that it was a "tourist" show, and seeing Aladdin the night before ruined us for the trip since that had been such a wonderful production!). Our favorite act of the show was the Wooden Soldier March.
The nativity scene included live sheep and camels.
For a late lunch we ate at City Bakery for their famous hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies. If you go, we highly recommend the hot chocolate with their homemade marshmallows, and instead of the cookie get their pretzel croissant to dip into the hot chocolate - the salty/sweet combo was excellent (whereas the hot chocolate/cookie combo was too sweet after a few bites).
We went to the Bryant Park Christmas market. Their ice skating rink is the only free rink in NYC, but unfortunately the line was one hour long so we did not skate again. Olivia is posing with our favorite NYC building (besides the Chrysler building) - the black and gold Bryant Park Hotel. It is striking!
The hot cider with a cinnamon stick at the Bryant Park market was the best cider I have ever had!
The library lions decorated for Christmas.
The library lobby decorated for Christmas. The library had a nice Charles Dicken's exhibit with his copy of A Christmas Carol that he used for readings, including his hand written notes.
We even had time for a stop at Grand Central Station to visit their Christmas market and see their Christmas train display.
The Lord and Taylor Christmas windows.
And we finally made it to the iconic Macy's Christmas windows. They were decorated with different Christmas's on the various planets.
Posing with the "Mars" window. We opted to pose with this window since it was the only one that we were able to get close to!
They ended with the earth window - which was extremely detailed with NYC decorated for Christmas, and included a scene from the Thanksgiving day parade.
We visited the Macy's Winter Wonderland on their 8th floor. It had their toys, was decorated for kids, and Santa was here. The line for Santa didn't look that long, so we asked the attendant about the line thinking that we would wait to see him. Turns out the line was 2 1/2 hours long (the bulk of the line was hidden in a different room)! We decided to skip that!
Our day ended with a trip to Madison Square Garden to see the Knicks vs. Raptors game. It went into overtime, with the Raptors winning. But seeing the Knicks in MSG knocked an item off of Joe's bucket list!
Before heading back to Illinois on Monday after our whirlwind trip, we had breakfast at The Palms in The Plaza Hotel.
The lobby of The Plaza Hotel. Thanks NYC - we had a fantastic time! Can't wait to come back again!
