Christmastime in NYC!

This Christmas we celebrated Christmas a little differently than normal -- we traveled to New York City! With New York being famous for its Christmas celebrations we decided it would be a great place to meet my family. Plus, with hotel points that Alex had earned and airline points that my parents had earned, it led to a fairly affordable vacation to a fairly pricey destination.

My flight left on Thursday morning, Dec. 22, but already the Christmas travellers were in full swing. Normally, when we fly out of Calgary, the line to get through customs is maybe a 20 minute wait, at most. But at 6 a.m. that morning the line was already all the way out to the ticket counters!! Probably easily an hour or two wait. Even though they were allowing people from my flight to bypass part of the line, it still would have been a long wait. I was so happy I had my Nexus card -- I just bypassed everyone and was through immigration in about 10 minutes!! This one trip alone was worth the $50 cost to get the Nexus card!

On my first flight leg, the flight was oversold and they were offering a $500 voucher to volunteers who took a later flight. I'm not one to turn down a free flight voucher, so I went to inquire. They said they could get me there just 1.5 to 2 hours later than my original flight, so I accepted! But because I had already gone through U.S. immigration, they had to call Canadian immigration to allow me to come back to the domestic terminal to get on a flight to Toronto. So I got the VIP service of the airline representative transporting me to the next flight. Overall a productive travel day though!

On Friday I met up with a friend who lives in New York and then the rest of my family started to arrive. By the end of the night, my dad, mom, sister and Alex had all arrived in New York and we had settled into our hotel right in the middle of Times Square. After our first night of trying to walk down the streets within Times Square, I quickly decided that I do not want to celebrate New Year's Eve there. We basically had to walk single file and weave in and out of traffic to navigate our way through. I can't even imagine how crowded it must be on New Year's Eve.

Times Square with 2011 still up at the top

The "2" that goes up by the ball to make it "2012"

I have to admit, New York does celebrate Christmas in style! Everywhere we went everything is decorated and Christmas music is playing! One of the cool parts was seeing the decorations along 5th Avenue and some of the major department stores with their elaborate window displays. I was thinking more of the window displays would be more Christmas-themed, but many of them had a non-Christmas theme, like at Barney's all had a Lady Gaga theme, as she will match sales of her clothing line to charity. Bloomingdale's even had a camera in their windows that you could take pictures with and then go onto to Facebook and tag yourself. We enjoyed walking down 5th Avenue at night because the nights seemed all the more vibrant. We even stopped at the Trump Tower for some photos near the tree. Later we found out that Donald was on the floor above us doing a television Christmas greeting!

At the Empire State Building

Candy version of the Empire State Building

Lord Taylor Window

One of Macy's Window Display

Along 5th Avenue

Fendi Store Decorations along 5th Avenue

More window displays!

Lady Gaga windows at Barneys

Christmas Light Display along 5th Avenue

On Christmas morning we enjoyed a breakfast at the hotel and then went to St. Bartholomew's on Park Avenue for a Christmas morning service. They had a beautifully sounding chorus and the inside of the church was very traditional and had character. On Christmas afternoon we went ice skating at Bryant Park, because Rockefeller Center is known for its long wait. It only cost $14 to rent skates at this rink, so if you have your own, it's free admission. But I think many other people had the same plan as us -- it was bumper-to-bumper skaters! For our Christmas evening we had purchased tickets to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes. It was amazing to see how synchronized the dancers were and I really enjoyed the living nativity that they had as one of the scenes. We also checked out the Rockefeller Christmas tree, which was crowded with other visitors coming to look at it lit up, but it was still amazing how large it was! I think it would be interesting to see it coming down the streets of New York.

"Merry Christmas" from the McLaughlins & Dennetts!

Ice Skating at Bryant Park

Radio City Music Hall

The manger scene from the "Christmas Spectacular" Show

The Rockefeller Christmas Tree

Throughout the rest of our trip, we did more of the touristy things. We rode the Staten Island Ferry to get a good view of the Statue of Liberty, viewed the Brooklyn Bridge, went to Little Italy, Chinatown, and the World Trade Center Memorial (just opened in September), visited Rockefeller Center and Top of the Rock during the daytime, went to the Broadway Show "Memphis" and spent some time shopping along 5th Avenue (the affordable stores) and at Macy's.

Brooklyn Bridge

Statue of Liberty from Staten Island Ferry

World Trade Center Freedom Tower

World Trade Center Memorial -- Two pools that are in the spots where the two towers stood.

On Broadway -- "Memphis"

Rockefeller Ice Skating Rink

View from Top of the Rock

Christmas was a bit different than how we traditionally celebrate it, but it was nice to spend time with the family and be surrounded by Christmas everywhere! (However, we still were able to enjoy our Christmas cookies that both my mom and I brought to New York.) I hope you had a great Christmas season and wish you the best for 2012!

The 2012 is ready for the big New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square!