{Saturday: Christmas Galore} It was finally Christmas morning! Ok, it was just Saturday but man did we have the best Christmas plans. We were fully psyched and ready to see NYC in all her Christmas glory! Our original plan was jam-packed with Christmas and NYC staple activities and in theory, was a REALLY good itinerary. Was it a smidge ambitious, maybe. Ok, it was a lot ambitious. Oh well, we thought! Off to see Christmas joy… in the rain! We peeked our heads out at 7:00 a.m. and notice the downpour and thought it best to maybe sleep in. After all, we did come home soaked the night prior at positively 1:00 a.m. so we weren’t just itching to get that way anytime in the near future.
So after a few snoozes, we dragged ourselves downstairs for waffles in our pajamas. Because you know what, that’s the benefit of not staying in Manhattan. People (and I mean us) are keeping it real, real in Queens.
(We promptly sent this picture to April’s mom/my aunt and I am sure she is still mortified to this day.) We zipped into some clothes and determined that trying to get a glimpse of FAO Schwartz was probably now fading as the line (presumably) was wrapped around the store.
We headed into midtown and ducked in and out of a few stores. We had intentions of Christmas shopping but the rain was such a deterrent as we were already soaked and didn’t think lugging around 10-15 pounds of clothes and misc. trinkets in a paper sack was going to help. We pulled over for a snack and much to my dismay, the Grinch’s Holiday Workshop (at the Children’s Museum) was a one year thing and was not a reoccuring Christmas event. No problem we thought, we’ll just shop around and catch the Christmas displays until it’s time for dinner!
After strolling around the city for a while, the wind started to pick up. And by pick up I mean gale-force, coulda carried Mary Poppins type wind. As we were trying to dodge the freezing rain, we were also currently catching it in our umbrellas that had turned inside out. We strolled up to Serendipity and promptly found out it was a 3 hour wait… so we strolled in the rain until we found a small pub to grab dinner prior to the Radio City Rockettes… aka the Christmas saving grace of the day.
We carried ourselves to Radio City Music Hall and for the first time, finally caught a glimpse of Christmas! We found our seats in the theatre and the show began. You know what happened next? WE STARTED CRYING. That’s right, we started crying Christmas tears of joy.We left the show on a new high and maybe stopped in Magnolia next to Radio City again… before we heading home because did we mention we saw the 10:00 p.m. show?
{Sunday: Soho Shopping/GGTLAM} After our flip ups and turn arounds, we decided the theme of today was to sleep in and wing it. We headed down to Times Dumb Square because we had to get one more show in and again, instead of calling all box offices, we took a stroll around to all of them. All our faves were taken so we landed on Tony winner, Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. Upon realizing we only had an an hour or so before the show and that we were STARVING, we stumbled upon Da Marinos (from a recommendation.)
We zipped in and told them we hoped to make it to our show on time so they created us a romantic two-person table in the wings. We had the sweetest waiter and decided after all the traipsing, we deserved a glass of lunch wine. After hugging our waiter/singer/entertainer, Tom, we were on our way! We bought standing row tickets to the show and scored a seat in the second act!
We left the show and started around the city in hopes of great steals in SoHo and on the search for some chocolate whiskey from a Brooklyn distillery for the guys. After we scored some goodies, it was nightfall and we knew we were hankering for some cookies. But first, we had to see that dad gum tree. Voila. Christmas Bliss. (And thank you kind stranger for not stealing our camera.)
By this point I have “given no cares” with regard of NYers shoving everyone out of the way that I purchased this here pillow and said to heck with it.
Post tree, we hopped on a north bound train and booked it to the Upper West Side. And when I say booked it, I mean running through the subway, running down the streets. Running. We made it to Levain just minutes before closing and found ourselves in a line wrapped around the store. We crossed our fingers and stood in the rain (shocker) that they would take pity on our wet souls and let us in for some cookies!
We scored some cookies and tried to only eat one on the Subway on the way home… we reserved the others for eating in bed and for breakfast of course. Also, maybe on that train ride home we switched trains at Union Station and had Shake Shack again.
{Monday: Tap Class} You should know, I have been taking or teaching dance for well over a decade and the decade before that was spent in a gym of sorts learning acrobatic tricks or holding tinier humans in precise positions in the air… but I’ve never taken tap class. April, on the other hand has taken many a tap class, but that was also a decade ago. In my genius, I suggested us to take a tap class at Broadway Dance Center. It. Was. Awesome.
We thought that basic was probably way too easy so we had our eyes on beginner. Needless to say, of course there were no beginner classes on the schedule so we pulled up our big girl panties and took intermediate. As usual, we were running late so we found ourselves running through TdS. We sure ran a lot during this trip? We thought we could be wallflowers in the back, nay. I’ll tell you what doesn’t change? The sheer panic you feel when the instructor says, “Now, we’re going to go across the room in pairs.” Hold me. We both looked at each other and surely thought the same thing. Well, maybe April felt worse for me. But we survived! We were on such a “workout” high that we felt like maybe we needed another cookie or two?
After snagging a cookie, we ducked into a little Italian cafe and found out that April’s flight had been delayed to the point that she wasn’t going to make it home. After spending a panicked lunch on the phone with Southwest, hauling back to Queens and $100 cab ride later, we were both at the airport going home to see our hunnies! Of course, we texted the entire way home about all the fun and failures had and vowed to spend our next vacation together lying on the beach flipping mags and reading books or snowed in a cabin in Wyoming with an endless Lifetime Christmas stream.
meg your pardon 