Christmas in the City

This fall, Lexi mentioned missing
NYC at Christmastime.
Who can blame her, really?
There's not much that beats the Big Apple
over the holidays.
And so, I convinced Vic to let his two biggest
girls take a belated birthday trip there
to kick off the Christmas season.

We flew in first thing on a Friday morning
and literally didn't stop moving for the next 48 hours.
We checked into the Millennium Hotel,
right in the heart of Times Square,
then hit nearly all our favorite spots in the city.

First up, we walked over to Bryant Park
to check out the pop-up Winter Village.
For the season, they added a great ice skating rink, Christmas tree,
and a whole series of free standing winter retail and dining shops.
We headed to Rockefeller Center next,
hoping the skating line might not be too long.
After waiting literally just five minutes,
our girl laced up and pretty much owned that famous rink.
She skated round and round,
then practiced her twirls, her jumps and her lunges.
She looked just like a little American Girl Doll on the ice.
What a special moment for us both!
Me watching from the observation deck,
and her skating in all her Christmas glory!

Up next, the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City!

This show never disappoints. 

Vic made us a reservation at Seraphina

to round out a great first day.

We enjoyed pizza and gnocchi, prosecco and shirley temples

before heading back to the hotel for some well deserved sleep.

But first, a quick pic in Times Square.

Just a few weeks later, the New Years' Eve ball 

would drop from this very spot. 

Lexi was up and dressed bright and early,
ready to tackle the day.
We headed back to Bryant Park for more skating.
I decided to join her this time around.

One of her goals for the weekend was to ride the subway,

so we used it to head to Herald Square and visited Macy's 

to look at the store windows and pay a visit to Santa.

If this Santa is good enough for "Miracle on 34th Street",

he's good enough for us too!

From there, we raced to meet the rest of my family
for lunch at their favorite restaurant, Becco.
Grandpa Mike used the occasion to tell Lexi
some of his Mrs. Lockhart stories,
and we got to sing Happy Birthday
(a few days early) to Nanny!

For her gift,
Lexi and I took mom to see Aladdin on Broadway.
We'd heard great things about the show,
and all three of us agreed with the reviews.
The play was cute, entertaining, had great music and dancing,
and the genie was truly outstanding.

Afterwards, Grandpa met back up with us
and we paid another visit to Rock Center.
It was absolutely PACKED with visitors,
but we still got to see the tree lit up at night
and this awesome version made entirely out of legos
before grabbing dinner at Oceanna.

We woke up the next morning
and paid a visit to Dylan's Candy Bar
before flying home.
It was a sweet way to wrap up a
truly wonderful and memorable trip!
We certainly can't pull this off every year,
but I hope we can keep up the tradition
every few years - with Ryleigh and Daddy too!
Lexi was an absolute rock star the entire weekend.
She never once complained about being tired,
or about walking all over midtown.
She was "all in" from the moment she woke up,
until the moment we crashed at night.
I'm so thankful it was everything she hoped for (and more)!