Christmas in NYC!

Five days before Christmas, we took the train into NYC to see all the lights and sights of the city at Christmas! It was amazing!!! It definitely surpassed our expectations!

The train took us into Penn Station which is quite the hubbub of activity and this is where we saw our first NYC Christmas tree. It was so big they had to hang the star from the ceiling! We went out into the city and headed straight for Macy's. We waited in line to see Santa at Macy's about 45 minutes, but the stuff you see in the line was so cool that the time went really fast. One thing I didn't get a picture of was along the walls there were blown up lists from children to Santa and they were really cute to read!

After seeing Santa we headed down the street and went to McDonald's for lunch. We would have loved to eat someplace more "New York" but the kids really wanted McDonald's and we hardly ever eat there...and we were really hungry!

After that we headed out into the cold again (it was really cold that day!) to look for a subway that was heading uptown. We couldn't go the route we wanted cause there were police everywhere blocking off the streets and sidewalks. Apparently there was a bomb threat!! The New Yorkers didn't seem scared at all...just annoyed! So we had to go a much longer way to get to the subway station we needed. There probably was another station we could have gone to but hey, we're tourists!!

The subway was fun! Family with 4 kids gets on the subway...no seats...no one cares!! After a young lady watched Little Man for awhile, she stood up and offered her seat to him, he was happy to sit down! We went uptown to go to a special place to get Scooter's first haircut!! He was so cute and when he was all done he was not happy about having to get out of the race car! He looks so big with his new haircut!!

We decided to walk back down 5th Avenue to go to Rockefeller Center. It was a long walk and it was really cold. We saw a lot of neat stuff though! Rockefeller Center (or RC) was really cool! Seeing the NYC Christmas tree and the lighted angels and the skating rink...beautiful! The girls really wanted to go ice skating but the wait was SOOOO long, so we decided not to. We did go to the Starbucks on the bottom floor of the RC and have some hot chocolate!!

After warming up and walking around some more, we went to the top of the RC! What a great view!! We could see the Empire State building and all of the city! After that we stopped and got some pretzels and then headed for the American Girl store. I now have been to 3 and I still think the one in Chicago is the best! It was a lot of fun!

On our way back to Penn station we went to Times Square...they didn't need any Christmas lights added to their display!! WOW!!! The train ride back to NJ was pretty quiet. I think we all really enjoyed our big trip to the city and look forward to going back in the spring to see completely different things!

Enjoy the pics!