Annual Christmas NYC Trip

It seems every year we go into NYC because I want to see the windows and The Tree (capital Ts, you know), and every year we come home and say "never again." It is just too crowded and too insane.

I'm pleased to report this year was different. We left thinking "we need to make notes on how we did this because this was easy."

Here are some notes. We went in on a windy Saturday afternoon with the main mission of seeing a show at the New Victory called Cirque Mechanics Pedal Punk -- sort of steam punk meets bicycles meets the circus. A high-energy show with something that appeals to everyone. It was a 7 PM show with a post-show talk back. The questions, mostly from children, were amazingly spot on. The first question was basically "Do you have a death wish?" The others were how long did you train, how much of the act did you already have worked out before getting together, do you ever want to throw up during an act, etc. The theater is small (about 200 seats) and very conveniently located.

We went in with Ashley's BFF, Maia, and her mom, Heidi. They are members at the New Vic, which meant really awesome discounted seats. Honestly, though, the seats were not expensive and there are no bad seats in the house. 

We did not hit the feared Lincoln Tunnel traffic (though it was slow going inside the Tunnel itself) and easily parked at Port Authority. We walked down to 34th Street to see the windows at Macy's. This year's was in honor of the 50th anniversary of Peanuts.

We had dinner at The Counter, which has become our default place to go in NYC as the food is filling, reasonably priced, not a regular chain (though I did see one in the Miami airport), and has something that appeals to everyone.

While in the area we saw the windows at Lord and Taylor's. Theirs are always so classic, but this year I preferred Macy's windows. I loved their archway of lights. It gave it a magical feel.

We poked through Bryant Park on the way to the show. Even that did not feel as crowded as it has felt in other years. I think it helped us that the weekend before was absolutely spring-like and probably attracted a number of the once a year visitors.

After the show we decided to be brave and walk down to The Tree. At this point it was about 9 PM. Bruce Springsteen was performing at Saturday Night Live that night (people waited outside 71 HOURS to snag tickets for that show), but the wind had died down and it was actually pleasant out (a nice change from the race I did that morning).

The grand finale ... The Tree.

We did pause at Saks 5th Avenue, but it wasn't even long enough to take a picture. They did not look special to me. Our tired feet did not want to journey to Bloomingdales. If I really want to see those I can look them up online.

Merry Christmas. May you be enjoying all of your favorite holiday traditions as well as creating new ones.