nyc at Christmas

***Warning - super long post!

Lee and I took a quick trip to NYC in December and loved every minute of it.  Lee hadn't been before and I'd never been at Christmas, so we were super excited!  The city at Christmas definitely didn't disappoint, it was fantastic!

Times Square

We stayed at The MAve, which was a cute boutique hotel in the Flat Iron District.  

The neighborhood is named after the Flat Iron Building, which is this really cool triangular shaped building. 

Our hotel was centrally located and just two blocks from a subway station.  Super convenient!  It was also super small!  Check out the 10 inch wide closet.   :)

and this is it for the room!  It was comfy though and we didn't spend much time in it anyway.

We started our trip doing all the touristy stuff.  We checked out Times Square, shopped at the big Macy's Store, saw the tree and watched the ice-skaters at Rockefeller Center, saw the view of the city from the Top of the Rock and toured NBC Studios.  

I forgot my scarf and had to make a quick stop here for a new one....it was cold!

Times Square

Radio City Music Hall

Rockefeller Center

Skaters at Rockefeller Plaza - so much fun!

Views from the Top of the Rock.  The city seems to go on forever.

We took several Gray Line tours while we were in town.  It was pretty chilly, but a great way to see the city!  We took the Uptown Tour, Downtown Tour and Brooklyn Tour.  It was a great way to see the different neighborhoods and learn more about them.

SantaCon, a big celebration in the city,  was going on while we were in town.  We saw Santas everywhere!

This doesn't even begin to show the number of Santas running around town.  It was crazy!

 

Next we headed to Brooklyn.  Here's the Brooklyn Bridge.

View of the skyline from Brooklyn....wish we'd been here at night!

 Battery Park 

 Statue of Liberty

We went to Grenwich Village for lunch and had the best gyro ever! Authentic Greek food is hard to beat!

 Two thumbs up!

Grenwich Village was our favorite neighborhood.  I'd want to live here if I lived in the city, such cute houses!

Stopped at the Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes.  The Sex and the City girls came here, so there's always a line!

 Delish!

 Oldest pub in NYC....this was full of Santas too!  :)

Empire State Building

A great breakfast spot.  Skinniest restaurant I've ever been in before!  We practically sat right on top of the cook!

 FAO Schwartz

 The shopping never stops!

 Coolest Apple store

We took a carriage ride in Central Park, which was really fun and relaxing after doing so much walking.

We really appreciated the warm blanket in the carriage.  Did I mention it was COLD in NY!?

We spent just a few hours at The Met, which wasn't nearly enough time, but we had places to go and things to see!

This might have been our favorite part of the entire trip.  Jersey Boys was fabulous!  Lee was a bit skeptical at first, but he loved it!

We had dinner at Serendipity afterwards.  The wait was long and the service was terrible,

but the frozen hot chocolate was TO DIE FOR!  Seriously delicious!

John's Pizzaria was another one of our favorite places to eat.  It's a well known pizzaria and it was good!  NY style pizza is excellent.

Some of my favorite decorations in NYC.  

The picture isn't very good, but these Christmas balls were so pretty!

The trip to NYC was oh so much fun!  In addition to the things mentioned in this post, we ate at all kinds of interesting and delicious restaurants ( I had the absolute best Croque Monsieur at Pigalle), went to a comedy club in Chelsea and saw Pablo Francisco (seriously hysterical!), etc.  I really can't say enough good things about this trip.  We're both ready to go back...but during a warmer season next time.  :)