Karyl & Katie take NYC 2011

The weekend before Christmas, Mom came down for the long weekend to experience Christmas in New York City.  There is nothing like Christmas in the city- just like everything New York, it's over the top and over-decorated, but thankfully, seeing as Christmas is my favorite time of the year, it really gets you in the mood.  We went a different route this year trying out new things and seeing New York in a non-touristy sense.  I mean you can only take crowds of people for so long- I think we actually only spent about 10 minutes total in Rockefeller Center, we just had bigger and better things to do!  Here is a recap in pictures of our weekend!

On Friday, Mom arrived early afternoon and we decided to get all of the really touristy things over that day seeing as it wasn't the weekend.  We started off at Columbus Circle and checked out the Christmas Market, trekked over to the Plaza Hotel and down 5th Avenue to get a glimpse of all the decorated stores.  After that we went to go see the tree and then headed down to Bryant Park and the NY Public Library.  From there we went through Times Square, got dinner in Hell's Kitchen at Southern Hospitality and then on a whim we ended up going to see Mamma Mia! It was an action packed and fun day!

The hanging stars in the Shops at Columbus Circle.  They are actually really big and change colors- at night they do a light show.  They are really pretty!

Tiffany's giant wreath on 5th Avenue!  This year the Tiffany windows had  a carousel theme to them! It was gorgeous!

Us with our giant shopping bags at Rockefeller Center!

In front of the Tree!

Gigantic Lights on 6th Ave

Us with the lights!!!

Hanging out at Bryant Park.  They have the Christmas shops here and the skating rink and the tree, but this year, there was an outdoor lounge with fireplace and heat lamps.  I pretended like I was far from the city in an exotic location like Aspen.  If you tried really hard you could almost not hear the sirens and the honking of horns!

Enjoying a brew at the lounge in Bryant Park!

Had to take a break from the walking and the shopping and sitting under the heat lamps gave us a chance to warm up! Cheers!

The tree in Bryant Park- in my opinion, this one is way prettier than the Rockefeller Center tree.  The blue lights are really pretty, in my opinion.

Time Square at night!

On Saturday, we woke up early and headed down to Union Square.  Before that we walked down 5th Ave and got some Christmas Shopping done.  We ate a quick lunch and then went to check out the Farmer's Market, Christmas shops outdoors and The Strand (a huge bookstore known for it's "miles and miles" of books!"  After that, we hopped on the L train, rode a few stops and "POOF," we were in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  We went to check out the Brooklyn Brewery- went on a quick tour of their new huge facility and had a beer!  After that we went back to Manhattan, trekked down to the West Village and I took Mom for dessert at Rocco's.  We had chocolate peppermint lattes- Mom had a fruit tart and I had a sfogliatella (a traditional Italian pastry stuffed with ricotta cheese.) On the way home we picked up a bottle of wine, ordered a pizza, changed into our pajamas and watched Christmas Movies all night!

Fresh Cranberries in Union Square

Brand New Mural outside of the new Brooklyn Brewery space

Enjoying my Winter Ale! Brooklyn Brewery is my absolute favorite!

Inside the Brewery

Outside of Rocco's Bakery!

Mom left on Sunday afternoon after we relaxed all morning and had lunch.  We had a great weekend- it's always a ton of fun when Mom comes to visit!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas from the Spencer Family!

The Ladies on Christmas Eve!

The Guys on Christmas Eve

This year for Christmas Eve, we decided to do an ugly Christmas sweater theme!  As you can see, everyone participated! My cousin Matt ended up winning- his sweater had lights, sang Feliz Navidad and was decked out in ornaments and pictures.  Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with next year!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!! Happy New Year to everyone! 

It's beginning to feel a lot like winter...

As the weather gets a little bit colder in NYC, it's starting to feel more and more like winter!  With only two more weeks until Christmas, I've been packing as much as possible into an already busy schedule!

This past Friday, the girls from work and I traveled up to Rockefeller Center.  This year over by the Nintendo Store and the studio for the Today Show, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has a window display set up!  Below is the picture of all of us outside of the window!  We hung out there for a little while to check it out and then grabbed some hot chocolate and yummy cookies!  It's a great way to promote our wonderful organization, so if you are in the city for the holidays, be sure to check it out!

On Sunday evening, after a weekend filled with running, fundraisers and holiday parties, 19 of us from the winter season Miami/Manhattan team went to the New York Rangers game!  They played the Florida Panthers and won 6-1! I have never been to a hockey game at Madison Square Garden so it was a great way to see a different side of New York. And since the Rangers are the only New York team I will root for, we definitely made the most of it and had a blast! The other great thing is that since we were a big group, we started off wayyyyy up in the nosebleed section with a horrible view of the ice.  One of our friends actually had a connection so we moved down to seats about 25-30 rows from the ice! It was awesome!!

Me, Erin & Erica at the game!

The view from the food balcony at the top of the garden.

Us in our new seats!!! Go Rangers!

Getting ready for the Rangers to come back on the ice

Rangers vs. Panthers

It was a great weekend!  Mom comes this upcoming weekend- you know what that means!!! Lots of pictures featuring Christmas in NYC.  Stay tuned for more fun and exciting updates!!!  Now if you don't mind, it's back to my hot chocolate (with extra marshmallows of course) and watching The Grinch!

Happy Holidays!

Candles burning low,
Lot's of mistletoe.
Lot's of snow and ice,
Everywhere we go.
Choirs singing carols,
Right outside my door.
All these things and more...
That's what Christmas means to me...

This Christmas was the first time I was coming home not as a student, but as a grown up with a grown up job.  Weird, I know, because I still talk about Santa like he's real, and I'm a huge cookie connoisseur.  But, I did take off a few extra days from work and the big city and came home to spend time with my family!  I had a ton of fun baking cookies, cooking and getting ready for Christmas Eve and even going to the Bruins game up at the Garden on the 23rd!

 
The Bruins ended up beating the Thrashers 4-1, Thornton almost had a hat trick and he managed a fight right at the start of the first period.  It was an exciting game and a ton of fun to be at the Garden!

Christmas Eve was the big day this year; we had the entire family over and the Friday was spent icing cookies, preparing a ham and cooking different appetizers for the evening!  Of course, I was cursing the cookies the whole time while they were actually baking, but after icing them, they began to look more like the animals they should look like.  Martha Stewart is a God if she really got her cookies to look like what the magazine looked like.  I'm convinced she iced cardboard cut-outs of cookies, because there is no way cookies could look that perfect.

I mean, mine came out pretty good- had to get creative before the icing dried!

That night we had the whole family over for food, pomegranate punch and fun!  Here are some pictures of my wonderful family!

 The Guys!

 The cousins!

 The Flaxington Clan

 The Spencer Clan

 Mimi, Poppa and the grandchildren!

The Lovely Ladies

 Bud and Dad having some fun!

Cheers to a successful Christmas Eve!

Christmas Day I spent with my family; we opened presents in the morning and then had an amazing dinner!  The highlight of my day was receiving a nook from my parents!  I'm so excited to just go crazy and read on this thing for the rest of my life.  Books and books and books; sadly I won't be able to create a library like the one in Beauty and the Beast, but maybe if I use my imagination, that's what my Nook library can eventually look like!  Of course it will be electronic, but you can imagine anything.. right?

After Christmas dinner with Mimi & Poppa we had dessert; White Chocolate Mousse that I slaved over!  Just kidding, it was literally 2 ingredients!

You melt white chocolate with 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream and let it cool to room temperature stirring occasionally.  In a chilled bowl whip 1 1/4 cups of heavy whipping cream until soft peaks form.  Fold in the white chocolate mixture.  Chill until ready to serve; garnish with mint and the berries of your choice.  In our case, we used blackberries! Yumm!  It was light, refreshing and decadent!

Christmas night I went over to the Luther's and exchanged gifts with Derek!  And... I am going to see the Lion King in February at PPAC in unbelievable seats!! I am so excited; not only have I wanted to see it since the 5th grade, but who doesn't love Disney?

And then of course we got hit with a blizzard.  So lucky me; my bus was canceled Sunday AND Monday and I got to spend those days playing board games and cards with Derek and purchasing a new pair of snow boots.  And thank god I did because New York City literally looked like "The Day After Tomorrow."  I'm not going to bore you with more pictures of snow because they have been plastered all over the news, but never in all my life have I seen such a mess!  Cars were covered in 6 feet of snow, side streets haven't been plowed, sidewalks are not cleared, and the plows are even taking out cars!  It's really unbelievable.  I heard that for every inch of snow the city gets it costs about $1 Million to remove it, so in that case, $20 million later, it's no wonder it's still a disaster.

But, my friends, the holidays are not over yet, and I will be making a return this weekend for New Year's Eve, the Winter Classic game ( if it doesn't get rained out.. and no I'm not going, I'm watching it at home on TV with lots of food) and Mimi's birthday party!

Merry Christmas!!!  Get ready to ring in 2011!

Karyl & Katie take NYC

This past weekend, my mom came to visit me in the big city!  In my opinion, this is the best time of year to visit, even with the cold, the city comes to life with the arrival of Christmas.  She got in on Thursday night, so we had a full weekend to spend traveling all over the city!  Thursday night we relaxed and went out to eat at a little italian restaurant around the corner from my house; Bar Toto.  It was delicious!  We had to get to bed early because the next morning we were on our way to Radio City Musical Hall to see the Rockette's perform their annual Christmas Spectacular!!

Radio City Music Hall; home of the Rockettes!!

Mom and I before it started!!

the kick-line!  They were amazing!

toy soldiers- easily the coolest part of the whole thing!!

the rockettes!

After we saw the spectacular, which really put us in the mood for Christmas we went off to Rockefeller center to see the tree!!!  I love the tree; I love bringing people who have never seen it and walking down the street, asking them if they're ready and turning the corner.  Picture it; walking down 49th St., only seeing random shops and cafes, no idea where you're going, and then BAM, you turn the corner and see this: 

The tree!!

We even took our pictures with it; and believe it or not, we made it back that night to see it all lit up!  It makes a world of difference when it's lit!

After checking out Rockefeller Center we decided to take a stroll down 5th Ave or Fashion Ave, and loop around through Midtown!!  5th Ave is known for it's amazing Christmas decorations and their window displays!! It's fun to just window shop because of course these stores are for the rich and famous!

 The NBA Store and Tommy Hilfiger

Tiffany's!

Fendi!

The Plaza Hotel

Even the NHL store was ready for Christmas!

After 5th Ave we took a short stroll through Central Park and then headed South towards Bryant Park and the NY Public Library!!

views from central park

Bryant Park; the rink, the tree and the library behind it!  Bryant Park had tons of outdoor shops all encased in glass!  It was a really cool way to shop, especially since they kept it mostly outside!

The New York Public library!! I fell in love with this place and even got a library card!

For all you Sex & the City fans; this is the library where Carrie attempted to get married!  It's even more beautiful in person!! Loved it here!

After we hung out at the library and Bryant Park we trekked down to Herald Square to visit Santa at Macy's!! The picture windows were all decorated for Christmas and even the 9th floor of Macy's looked like we had reached the North Pole!

Macy's!

the entrance at Macy's!

Believe Bears!

we even made it all the way to the North Pole to see Santa!!!

After Macy's we headed uptown to check out Times Square at night and headed back to Rockefeller Center to see the tree!!  The lights look even better at night!!

Times Square

All lit up at night!

The tree all lit up at night; beautiful!!!

Believe it or not, we were absolutely exhausted after that day!  We walked a lot!! After dinner in Times Square we headed back to my apartment and watched Christmas movies and drank wine!  The next morning, we were headed a little farther downtown!

On Saturday, we started off the day in Union Square to check out the farmer's market and holiday craft show!  It's amazing what they can do with a small park! 

Pretty flowers in Union Square

Christmas tree sale in Union Square

After Union Square we went to check out the Flatiron District and Eataly!  Eataly is a huge indoor market that contains Italian food.  From pasta, to espresso, to gelato to wine, it has everything!!

Desserts!

Directions to all the different parts of Eataly!

pasta lovers paradise!

After Eataly we strolled back downtown towards Soho!  On the way, we discovered a market called Limelight Market.  It was really awesome because it was a marketplace inside an old church!  It was decorated for Christmas and had small boutiques and food shops!  You never know what you'll find in NYC!

We then made our way to Soho and Little Italy to eat lunch!!  

Little Italy!

Peroni with lunch!

Antipasto Misto at Il Piccolo Buffalo!

After lunch we made our way back to Brooklyn to get ready for our big night out on the town!!  My mom surprised me with Broadway tickets to see the Million Dollar Quartet!!! It was amazing; featured Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and my two favorites... Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash!!  It was based on the gathering of the 4 of them in Sun Records when they all got together and had a big jam session!  It was seriously the best thing I have ever been to.  We left dancing!  Mimi all I can say is that you would have loved it!!!!

me and my two favorites!!

mom and the guys!! 

We had so much fun all weekend!! From the tree to 5th ave to Little Italy to Broadway, I don't think we really missed anything!  We fit it all in!!! Now I'm exhausted and can't wait to take a nap!!  If you ever get the chance to visit NYC near Christmastime, I would highly suggest it; and if you can, do it with someone you love :)