This year we decided that it would be fun to spend a long weekend in New York City to see all of the Christmas decorations and really get into the Christmas spirit. We took the kids out of school a couple of hours early on a Thursday afternoon and were in NYC in time for a holiday lights tour on a double decker bus.
The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was even more beautiful in person!
Ellie was super excited to visit M&M World in Times Square again on this visit to NYC.
They love this interactive tv that tells scans you and tells you what your m&m color is and what that color means. This time Emory was dark green and Ellie was cream.
Ellie striking a pose...
There were amazing Christmas decorations everywhere and most of them were huge!
...and then found Elizabeth Street during a walk through Chinatown in our search for pandas.
No trip to NYC at Christmas would be complete without a visit to Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes Christmas show. It was great and we all enjoyed it. The next day we took a behind the scenes tour of Radio City Music Hall and were even more impressed.
The toy soldiers was our favorite part of the show...
No Christmas show would be complete without Santa...
We walked around the citythat never sleep late into the night on most nights and were just amazed with all of the decorations from the lights on the buildings to the tree to crystal snowflakes hanging over the city street below.
The store windows were just as amazing in person as we had hoped they would be and there were so many different ones at each store. A favorite were ones that depicted Cirque du Soliel.
Ellie loved this one with digital chalkboards that showed a little girl sitting on a rock drawing different winter related drawings.
We had a fun pedicab ride through Times Square late one night on the way to Bryant Park. Our driver was awesome and weaved his way through the traffic that was gridlocked in no time!
Bryant Park was beautiful. It has a huge tree decorated in blue lights and an ice skating rink along with lots of small outdoor shops and eateries. We loved seeing the Empire State Building all lit up in blue and white.
Later that same evening we went to the top of the Empire State Building for a different view of the city lights. It was pretty but so windy and brrrr....cold!
The windows at Macy's were great and Emory loved shopping on all 9 floors one night around 11pm! ha!
On our last day in NYC we started out early with a visit to the Toys R Us in Times Square for a ride on their indoor ferris wheel. It was on the list of things to do during our first visit to the city a couple of years ago but we didn't make it to it.
Next it was off to Bryant Park for a little ice skating. Even though the weather wasn't that great and it was a little drizzly, that didn't stop the kids and Dan. They were out there having fun on the ice.
Once the drizzle picked up a little more and the cold set in, we made our last stop at the Museum of Modern Art. They have an fun cafe for lunch and of course amazing art. Ellie was excited to check it all out.
This was really fun at MOMA. There was a big white screen that back lit the kids and their actions were animated and sound added that showed up on a screen on another wall.
Heading back to the hotel we stopped for a quick visit to FAO Schwartz and the big piano...
and found a little e for ellie bean...
It was a wonderful trip to NYC and the perfect way to spend a weekend in December! We're in the countdown to Christmas now...
