Christmas in New York City, NY | Birthday Celebrations

This is long and scary, beware….

We knew at the beginning of the year that we would need to do something very special for my mother on her milestone birthday in December (I won’t tell you the age so that I score favorite daughter points). What we didn’t know at the time, was what the end result would be…..

Begin Planning: May. We decided we were going to throw mom a huge surprise birthday party sometime in November or December and invite a lot of people. We started planning this venture but the brakes quickly got put on when my mom out of the blue gave me that motherly warning “I do not want a surprise party for my birthday….” Man, does she know me well.

I went home a little discouraged and started throwing around ideas of what we could do to commemorate such an occasion. Since she had successfully ruined all party plans, we decided to go one step bigger: a full trip to New York City. During this trip we knew that she would completely love it if we included a Broadway show and the New York City Ballet. In a matter of weeks, the flights were booked, the hotel was reserved, the tickets for the shows were bought and all we could do was wait……

Fast Forward to the end of October. Mom is starting to make plans for the Holiday season which make it almost impossible to keep the secret any longer. We wrap ONLY the Broadway tickets up and throw her an impromptu family birthday party a week before Halloween (her actual birthday is in December). The party throws her and she’s completely confused as she is opening her gift. Once opened, she stared at the tickets for a while and started making assumptions that the Broadway show was a traveling show and that I had gotten her tickets to see it at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, once she realized she was wrong and that the show was in NYC, the pieces started falling together and before she knew it she was packing for a packed weekend in the Big Apple. And yes, she cried, I have it on video if you ever want to see it 🙂

Now back up to last week. We landed in NYC on December 4th with much excitement and packed a lot into our first day. We stayed right downtown in Times Square at the Wellington Hotel which was a beautiful building in a great location (right next to the subway station). The hotel was two blocks from Central Park and literally in Times Square, it couldn’t have been more perfect. Our first day, we walked a good majority of Central Park and saw beautiful city skylines and buildings. We walked down to Times Square where we ate at Ellen’s Stardust Diner (where Broadway hopefuls sing and perform) and then we headed towards the beautiful lighted Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. The tree was stunning and directly across the street was a projected Christmas light show on the entire building of Saks Fifth Avenue. We continued walking down Fifth Avenue and saw Radio City Music Hall, the Late Night Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Apple Store, The 7 Floor Tiffany and Co (which we shopped), and countless other well known stores. The first full day was amazing.

The second day we got up early and figured out how to master the Subway. It takes a bit of getting used to but once you have it figured out, it is by far the easiest way to get around NYC. We didn’t get on any wrong trains but we did get turned around only once on one of the platforms. Other than that, thanks to our handy Subway app we made it down to Battery Park to go see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Both monuments were beautiful and we wished we had more time to take in all the history of both. We visited the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty (20 floors of stairs, it isn’t for sissys) and then headed back to Manhattan to pay our respects at the World Trade Center Memorial. The fountains are a heart sinking reminder of the tragedy that occurred there but the glimmer of hope in the sadness is all of the rebuilding that has gone on in the area, including the New World Trade Center standing tall and proud in the vicinity. It was tough to see tourist behavior at this location, it was about the only negative things about the trip I can comment on. We saw people eating hot dogs and taking selfies with the memorial fountains and it kind of made my stomach churn. To me, this area was hallowed ground, a cemetery no less to unclaimed remains and it was really difficult to see that kind of behavior. I only hope that what we witnessed was a rarity. We continued up the subway system and visited the 9 floor Macy’s on 34th Street where conveniently everything was on sale. Mom and I scored some really awesome gifts (for mostly ourselves) and could have gotten lost in the store for days. We went back to the hotel and went to Lincoln Center to see the New York City Ballet perform the Nutcracker. The ballet was amazing and we were in awe by the talent required by the dances (and the children in the performance) to complete some of the positions and moves. It really was amazing. We topped the night off with a visit to the original Ray’s Pizza, just down the street from our hotel.

The third day was all dedicated to shopping. We started the morning off on Madison Ave in the old portion of NYC visiting Barney’s, Bloomingdales, Kate Spade and more. We then ventured to Strawberry Fields where we saw the memorial dedicated to John Lennon. We went back to Macy’s on 34th street to finish up our shopping and also visited the Empire State Building. Although it was disappointing that it was such a cloudy day and we couldn’t have a view from the top it was still a cool experience to be in the building. We knew we had to be early for dinner since we were headed to one of the hottest restaurants in NYC, prior to a Broadway show, Tony DiNapoli’s (Italian). We got ready for the Broadway show and headed to dinner ( note: if you want to eat at this restaurant we strongly recommend reservations, walk ins were being told it would be a three hour wait around 6PM). This meal specifically was a special dinner mom treated me too at Tony’s for my 29th Birthday. Although we were there to celebrate her birthday, my birthday fell on the Saturday we were in NYC, and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it then with my mom in NYC. Dinner was amazing and it was a short walk through Times Square to get to the Broadway Show: The Book of Mormon. Just a small disclaimer about this show if you ever consider seeing it: It is highly offensive and leaves no joke unsaid. With that in mind, I absolutely loved it, I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. The music was great but the comedy was even better. If you are overly sensitive, this isn’t the show for you. The show ended late and we headed back to start our final day in NYC.

Our last day in NYC we got to see Times Square for the first time during the day and do a little last minute gift shopping. Our flight home was smooth and we landed with a lot of memories. We walked over 26 miles during our trip, ate NYC cheesecake and pastries, enjoyed two shows, and crammed in a lot of major attractions. There was just so much there to do, I know some day we will have to go back. Even though I missed my husband it was an awesome experience to have an all girl trip with my mom. I’m anxious to go back and do all of the things we didn’t get time to do (especially going to the B and H flagship camera store). Christmas in NYC is amazing, such an experience.

For you photo nerds following the blog, all of the photos below were taken with the Fuji X100s or the iPhone 5. I took a small vacation from my normal Nikon gear and brought the easiest camera I had. I didn’t really take a large quantity of photos because I was more focused on just enjoying the trip (which is a nice change from my normal). Enjoy!

I think mom and I got to enjoy Birthday experiences of a lifetime. We sadly didn’t get too many photos of ourselves together (aside from our selflies on my phone) but it was nice not feeling the pressure to take photos every minute of the experience. Cheers Mamma and Happy Birthday!

-Kate

(above store: Tiffany and Co)