Before we even left NC, we were getting sandwich orders from Doc (you can see him writing his order out in the car on the way to the airport). The order was something along the lines of “get me the biggest corned beef and liverwurst sandwich in New York”… and we tried to get one, but there was an issue… when we were heading to the deli at the end of the trip, a blizzard hit NY. Pretty much everything went crazy that last night, which I’ll get into later, but long story short – no sandwich. However, we did find out that the Carnegie Deli will ship any item on the menu to anywhere in the US! But before I get too much into the trip, here is the schedule we pretty much stuck to so you can get an idea of everything:

Dec 17th – Thursday:

05:00pm – Depart RDU (Flight 6587)(Seats 10A & 10B)

06:52pm – Arrive LGA (Flight 6587)

08:00pm – Check into Hotel Ravel

09:00pm – Il Vagabondo

Dec 18th – Friday:

08:30am – Breakfast With Santa (Need Email)

09:45am – Ice Skating at Rockefeller (Pickup Tickets)

11:00am – Top of The Rock

01:00pm – Magnolia Bakery

02:00pm – Window Walking Tour

05:30pm – Serendipity 3

07:00pm – Carriage in Central Park ($34 Plus Tip)

08:00pm – FAO Swartz

09:30pm – Radio City Christmas (4, C, Seats 405 & 406)

Dec 19th – Saturday:

11:30am – Brunch at Tavern On The Green

01:00pm – Central Park

02:00pm – Plaza Hotel & Carol Singers

04:00pm – FAO Swartz

05:00pm – Tiffany’s

06:00pm – Capri in Hell’s Kitchen

08:00pm – Wicked (K, Seats 111 & 112)

Dec 20th – Sunday:

12:00pm - Check out of Hotel Ravel (Store Bags)

01:00pm – Lombardi’s Pizza

02:00pm – Find out Flight is Canceled

05:30pm – Bus to DC to Raleigh

When we first arrived in New York, we realized how easy the NC winter really is. NY dropped probably 25 degrees from Raleigh, and usually hovered right around freezing. Not too bad, unless there is a blizzard (yep, it’s coming). Our first stop in New York was for dinner (since we landed late Thursday night) so I had made reservations for a close place that seemed fun, Il Vagabondo. This place turned out to be really great with its old world Italian feel and indoor Bocce court. This is now one of our favorites in NY.

Luckily, the NY cold makes for great ice skating, so one of the first things we did was head out to Rockefeller for breakfast with Santa and some ice skating. For anyone who ever goes to NY for Christmas, I would highly recommend the breakfast with Santa and Skating package at the Rock Center Cafe. It’s a little expensive, but you get a huge meal, and then free ice skating, but the best part is that you don’t have to wait in line! the Rockefeller ice skating line is usually a 3-4 hour wait, especially around Christmas. Our wait? 3-4 minutes!

After Ice skating we headed up to the top of Rockefeller Center, or “Top of The Rock“ for some good views of the city, and just to relax after skating. The views are amazing, and I would say it’s a much better experience than going to the top of the Empire State building. Again, the lines are big factor here because we’re really not ones for wasting half the day in a line. The line for The Empire State Building was about 3 Hours when I went (years ago), but the line for The Top of The Rock was only about 10 minutes. Also the Top of The Rock’s line was filled with historic info, old TV broadcasts and a photo shoot on a fake set… The Empire State building’s line was pretty much like an immigration line. Not to mention that the view is just as good, if not better, and there is a LOT more area for people to walk around outside.

Once we got some good pictures, we headed down to the Rockefeller concourse for lunch. We also picked up some of the world renowned Magnolia Bakery Cupcakes! We had a bit of a sugar rush after these ridiculously sweet cupcakes, so we went on a walking tour of all the famous department store window displays. We started at Macy’s and headed north. We stopped at Lord & Taylor, Saks 5th Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys, and Bloomingdales. We only went in the store if it looked super decked out with decorations (or we wanted to get warm). The walking tour took about 3 hours, and it was starting to get dark (and pretty cold), so we decided to head in for dinner at Serendipity (only a block from Bloomingdales). I had already planned this in advance, and would recommend anyone who wants to go there, get reservations months in advance. You could wait to get in, but just like everything else in New York at Christmas, the wait is about 3-4 hours.

Serendipity is an awesome place, and I would really recommend trying to get stop in at least once. They specialize in dessert, but you can’t come in for dessert only, so your reservations have to be for dinner too… Luckily their dinner is really good as well. They are also know for their celebrity sightings, which didn’t happen to us, but their website keeps a running list of the big names that stop in.

After dinner we were right around the corner from Central Park, so we decided on a classic Christmas tradition… a carriage ride! For about $35 (cash only) you can get a great ride through central park and around the Plaza Hotel. The pickup and drop off is right in front of the Plaza, and runs through midnight every night (as long as it’s above 20 degrees). They give you a nice big blanket to get under, but at about 25 degrees, you’ll need more than that if you’re outside for a half hour, so I hope you have a big coat! Again, this is another highly recommended activity!

WE had a little time to kill before our next big event, so we stopped in at FAO Swartz to play the piano from BIG and just look around. FAO is now owned by Toys R Us, but it still has the classic look and feel that it always did. They have toys I’ve never seen before, and life sized stuffed animals costing up to $10,000! It’s a pretty cool place for an adult, and I can only imagine the brain explosion a kid would have there.

Next up was the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular! This is a very family friendly show, and includes the Rockettes, Santa, a Ballet Nutcracker, and a HUGE orchestra. This was one of the anchors of the trip, and was well worth going (We will be going again)! On a side not, another thing to do early for a NY trip is booking plays and performances. Yes, you *can* get tickets there, or even day of, but you won’t get good tickets, and you most likely won’t be able to find a pair of good tickets. My uncle got lucky once and got a single ticket to a great show for only a few bucks… that’s the only time I’ve ever heard of someone getting what they had hoped for when buying late. In general, if you want good seats to a good show, buy early. I mean really early too, like 3-4 months early.

We had a pretty long day yesterday, so we started the next day off a little slower and headed to The Tavern on The Green for brunch. I’m glad we got to eat there because the iconic restaurant closed for good only 2 weeks later. The food was great, and we got our picture taken by a roving photographer. After brunch, we headed around back to check out the crazy hedge designs and then for a walk through Central Park. We headed south towards the Central Park Ice Rink and the Plaza Hotel, and about half way there it started to snow!! We took a few pictures and headed on to The Plaza to see some Carol Singers (which were really good!). We took it easy for awhile and toured around a little bit more as the snow kept coming down harder. This is when we were going to pick up Doc’s sandwich, but the snow started coming down so heavy that transportation, or really just doing anything, was getting pretty difficult.

We did have one more anchor event left though, which was the broadway play Wicked, so we decided to head in that direction. We got some food along the way, and we made it just in time. I didn’t get to take any pictures inside the play, but trust me when I say that it was the most amazing play ever! I have seen a bunch of big name plays, and this one really does top them all. If you are in NY, see Wicked.

So when we went into Wicked the snow was getting pretty crazy and streets were shutting down. Can you guess what it was like when we got out (3 and a half hours later)? New York had stopped. Everything was closed, there were no cars on the streets, and only a few people still walking around. It was 11 O’clock on a Saturday night in downtown New York, and it was like a ghost town. I would say the snow got up to around 3 feet high by the time we got out of Wicked! We ended up having to take the subway back across town to get home, but we did make it.

What didn’t we make? Our flight. Of course we didn’t find that out until late the next day, but yeah, troubles await…

Before we realize that we may be standed, we headed out for one last day of NY fun before heading home. We had about half of a day left before we had to leave for our flight (well, we would have), so we decided to head down towards Wall street and the little Italy area. I had found a great place for lunch so our first stop was Lombardi’s Pizza. Lombardi’s was actually the very first pizza place in America, and it lives up to the reputation as one of the best too! We had the Magherita Pizza and it was amazing. no need to go crazy here to get something good, so we just stuck with the basics. Again, another highly recommended hit on the list!

After lunch we walked around wall street some until… I got a call from my mom saying “So what are you going to do?” I said “What?” to which she responds “You know, now that ALL FLIGHTS OUT OF NEW YORK ARE CANCELLED FOR THE NEXT WEEK!!!”…. What? Ok, so, she wasn’t yelling, I just used caps to show the craziness of that moment, but yeah… all flights were cancelled. I’ll spare you the details, but after some help from friends and family, we finally found a bus home (though we had to run through the snow, avoid a fire a Macy’s and yell at some cabbies to get there), so it wasn’t too much of a disaster.

All in all, it was an amazing trip and I hope to make Christmas in New York a tradition. If you want to look over my schedule, this is pretty much the schedule we stuck to, and will also probably be pretty similar to the 2010 schedule! Below that you’ll find a ton of photos… Enjoy!

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Shipping will take about a month, and the volunteers that take the packages to the orphanage won’t get there until late January, but the kids will love it all just the same. Luckily, Christmas isn’t celebrated in Ukraine until January anyhow, so our package should only be a week or so behind that. I just can’t believe how much stuff we ended up with to ship, I think shipping costs will be almost as much as the stuff itself. Shipping is $5 a pound, and we have 6 boxes at about 15 pounds each… uh oh!

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We ate until we could barely move, and then headed outside for a bag-o tournament. Bag-o doesn”t really require too much moving, so it was perfect. I’m not sure who won, but we played for hours. Thanksgiving is also Amanda’s birthday, so I brought some presents down for her to open after dinner. She got Leather Jacket, Scarf and a new radio for her car (those long trips to Greensboro get a little boring on the AM radio). Later we all got together for a nice family photo or two, and then we were off. In all, it was great to see the families together, and I think everybody really was glad to have such a nice holiday.

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A few people couldn’t make it, but I think we ended up with about 16 or so people. And when you’re counting close friends, 16 is pretty impressive! Unfortunately, her really good friend Tony couldn’t make it because he got stuck in bad weather in the mountains, but he’s on the list for next year! Maybe  I can get our list up to 20 next year? I think I feel a annual record breaking goal in the works. 

Wow. Just… WOW.

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