Liam and I took a mini road trip to the city that never sleeps! We wined and dined among the neon lights for a quick, weekend retreat. After around 4 hours of driving and a personal welcoming by Taylor Swift’s hit song, we arrived in New York City! With the strong smell of urine in the frigid air, we set out to walk 5th Avenue to view the annual holiday decorations. Us, and just about 20 million other tourists all trying to see how Manhattan decorates for Christmas.
New York City has the best Christmas decorations in the world. The magic that comes from millions of stringed lights brings out the beauty of the city. The window light show that Saks Fifth Avenue displays each year is infamous world wide. Each viewing takes around 10 minutes, and be sure to find a spot! The adjacent road is littered with tourists holding selfie-sticks – it’s difficult to get a good, centered, clear image of the windows.
Growing up, my Nana displayed porcelain Christmas in New York City figurines around her living room. Replicas of the Plaza Hotel and Rockefeller Center I was never allowed to touch were lit up across the fold-out table. Walking through the real-life city 10 years later reminded me of the magic of the holiday season. And it briefly let me feel close to my departed grandmother once again.
Skating at Rockefeller Center has always been a dream of mine, but negative temperatures and hour-long lines prevent such dream. However, just standing in front of the legendary Christmas tree was spectacular enough for me.
Lastly, I really wanted to take a photo of the ginormous red Christmas ornaments in the fountain across from Radio City. Something about the simplicity of the sculpture is truly beautiful to me.
After the bone-chilling tour of 5th Ave, we withdrew to our cozy Airbnb in Times Square. We got really lucky when booking the location, I found our room at an incredible price for the center of Times Square.
For Christmas, Liam surprised me with tickets to my favorite Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon! Since you can’t truly experience New York without attending one of Broadway’s award-winning performances. The excitement of watching a beloved show with my best friend overpowered my unwillingness to face the cold weather. The show was worth the potential frost bite!
Once the theater’s incredible cast took their last bow, we cleared out of the theater and hit the closet Irish Pub we could find, O’Donahue’s, for a quick night cap. It took 45 minutes for the waiter to bring us our drinks, so we opted for two bottles of cheap CVS wine and Netflix in our airbnb instead.
All in all, it was the perfect weekend getaway in the Big City. Someone tell Gossip Girl I’m here!
If you have any questions regarding Christmas in New York City, or anything else I may have covered, please email me at hello@alostblonde.com
♡ Abigail Reagan
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Read several of your short stories, I find them to be innocent and refreshing.
Love you perspective of your travels.
Keep writing,
Donna
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed my style of writing!