Christmas in NYC

My Christmas mornings usually consist of walking down the stairs to the living room, single file, youngest to oldest, while Dad stands at the bottom of the stairs recording every sleepy moment! The day then turns to an excess of opening up presents, followed by a big breakfast, an even bigger lunch with all of the family, left overs and desserts for dinner, and way too much sleeping in between meals.

This year was very different.

I woke up at around midday, rolled over in my bed and went back to sleep. Not before hopping out of bed to turn on the christmas tree lights of course. Most of my friends were out of the city for Christmas, and my only plans for the day weren't until later that night.

I woke again about an hour later, very hungry, and without any idea of where to eat. I decided on Fairway Cafe, the amazing Steak restaurant in the grocery store I have written about once before. I ordered a steak sandwich and a Mimosa...or three.

I didn't have any presents to open. I had opened up Matt's present a couple of days before, when he left to go home to Seattle. And the rest of my presents were in the post.

I walked the streets, and viewed the city in a very different way on Christmas day. It was amazing to see how many people don't celebrate Christmas in New York. Truly amazing!

I met my friend Kyra at around 6pm for our dinner reservation. Our booking was at 7pm, so we sat at the bar and polished off a beautiful bottle of champagne first. We were both dressed in our Christmas best. Our dinner was amazing, as was the bottle of wine that complemented it.

We had planned on going Ice Skating at Rockefeller Center, and when we looked at the time and noticed we had enjoyed our Christmas feast so much that it was already 10.30pm, we realized that we may not make it in time.

We exited quickly, and made our way to Rockefeller pronto, only to find a huge line-up. We were told that by the time we reached the front of the line we would be lucky to get half an hour of skating in. But, it was part of our first Christmas in NYC & neither of us cared if we had 2 hrs of skating or 20 mins.

As it turned out, we got 20 mins in. But WOW was it an amazing 20 mins. We had an absolute fantastic end to the night & although I only saw one familiar face the entire Christmas day, it was a Christmas I will remember forever.

The first, but certainly not the last Christmas, I will spend in NYC!