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!
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| 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! |
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| Tiffany's giant wreath on 5th Avenue! This year the Tiffany windows had a carousel theme to them! It was gorgeous! |
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| Us with our giant shopping bags at Rockefeller Center! |
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| In front of the Tree! |
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| Gigantic Lights on 6th Ave |
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| Us with the lights!!! |
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| 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! |
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| Enjoying a brew at the lounge in Bryant Park! |
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| 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! |
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| 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. |
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Time Square at night!
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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!
