Christmas in NYC

Christmas in New York was epic - what an amazing city to be in for the holiday. I'm so glad I got to experience it...

The plan was to fly to Denver Wednesday night and then we were flying from Denver to NYC on Thursday morning. My flight from Seattle was supposed to leave at 8:30 and get in at midnight, but then got delayed... for 2 hours. By the time I got to Denver and navigated through the giant airport to passenger pick-up, it was after 3am and 9 degrees outside. 9!!

We slept for about 2 hours and then headed back to the airport for our next flight. We arrived in LaGuardia at 2:30 in the afternoon and took the shuttle to the hotel. We were staying at a Hampton Inn at LaGuardia the first night (worked out better with flights and they still had an employee rate). Our plan was to got for a run, but hunger and tiredness won out -- we took a nap and ordered pizza instead.

On Friday we thought we'd run before heading to the city, however it was monsooning and despite being from a place that gets a lot of rain... I wasn't going to run in that. :) We took the subway to Manhattan and checked into our hotel - the Hampton Inn at Madison Square Garden. There happened to be a 99 cent store across the street, so we went and bought some Christmas decorations to make our hotel room festive. :)

The afternoon was spent wandering around the city in our ugly Christmas sweaters (purchased specifically for the trip) and going ice skating in Central Park. We made our way there via Rockefeller Center and took some pictures by the tree. We got a few funny looks... hopefully people knew we were joking.

We even made it into FAO Schwartz and I got my fortune told by Zoltar and saw the giant piano keys from "Big". Awesome!

Ice skating in Central Park cost more than a night in our hotel, but was totally worth doing at Christmas time... especially in tacky Christmas sweaters. Luckily the rain hadn't followed us from the morning and that view of the city from the park is always amazing.

We took a recommendation from the front desk at the hotel for a Thai place for dinner that turned out to be pretty good, before heading to the Knicks/Bulls game. Being in Madison Square Garden is a little unreal... even being in the nosebleed seats. So cool. The Knicks lost unfortunately, but the game was quite entertaining as 3 players and the coach got ejected.

In walking around the city, we happened to find a great place for lunch on Saturday. It was a wine bar called Ayza and the food was really good. Then we were off to see naked puppets in Avenue Q (always funny!), saw the city from the top of Rockefeller Center and ended the night at Da Andrea for some pasta in preparation of our long run. 

@ Ayza

We were scheduled to run 17 miles on Sunday and Dustin planned an epic route for us. We took the subway to Brooklyn and started the run with an easy 3 mile loop around Prospect Park. We then ran through the streets of Brooklyn to get to the Brooklyn bridge, where we stopped to take some pictures. Running over the bridge was spectacular.


By the time we ran over the bridge, we were already 7 miles in. We then ran through Battery Park and at mile 10 we were heading up the west side of Manhattan. It was along the water so it was beautiful, but the last 7 miles didn't go quite as quickly as the first 10. It was a long stretch, but we made it. Took the subway back to the hotel and were only a few minutes late for our brunch reservations at Candle 79.

Butternut squash & mushroom crepe

Quinoa pancakes

We spent several hours admiring art at the Met and then headed to John's Pizzeria where we devoured an entire pizza, garlic knots and a beer or two.

Monday was Christmas Eve and I really wanted to get a run in. We took running Santa to Central Park... and I even dressed up a little too. I think we definitely spread some Christmas cheer. People were yelling and Ho Ho Ho-ing and taking pictures of us as we ran. One woman even asked us to stop so she could get her camera out, then made us start running again to get an action shot. It was a great time and was helpful in distracting me from the fact that my legs didn't really want to run again so soon.

After a shower and coffee, we came back to Central Park to wander through the Christmas market they had there.

We decided with it being Christmas Eve and all.. a carriage ride through Central Park was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Only thing missing was the snow. :)

It was definitely cold enough though... as we sat and smoked a cigar in Central Park (ok, I couldn't finish mine) and watched the sun start to set.

We stopped to see some more lights as we made our way back to the hotel..

Spent the evening watching "A Christmas Story" (what else?!?) and ordered more pizza. Doesn't get much more festive than that in NYC. We were like little kids when we saw a few snow flurries outside, but sadly it didn't turn into much. We wandered out into Times Square later in hopes of some snowflakes... saw the window displays at Macy's... and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the city - still so lively on Christmas Eve.

No snow on Christmas morning either, but the city was pretty quiet as we headed back to the airport (we took a town car... seemed like the stylish way to leave this epic trip). We got to Denver in the afternoon and were still able to spend Christmas with family. It was such a wonderful trip! I love Christmas!