Christmas in New York City: Time To Be Merry
Have you ever wondered what New York City is like at Christmas time? Well we were there just a week before the holiday so we are able to share some of our favourite things do in New York City at Christmas!
Rockefeller Centre
The most quintessential Christmas moment in New York has to be the tree and ice skating rink at Rockefeller Centre. Located right in Mid-town you can’t miss this beast of a tree. The tradition has been going since 1933 and the trees are about 30m tall – that’s a big tree!
Macy’s
If you are looking for Department Store Christmas windows you can’t go past Macy’s. Walking past all the store windows made me jump around like a little girl with excitement!
Skating at Bryant Park
During winter there are plenty of options to go ice-skating in New York. Once of the nicest ones that we came across was at Bryant Park close to The Empire State Building. Free skate rink and a cute Christmas market surrounding it? Perfect!
New York Public Library
Wandering down 5th Avenue we decided to duck in out of the cold and explore the New York Public Library. It was filled with Christmassy goodness and a Charles Dickens Exhibition, our nerdy book selves were in Heaven.
SantaCon
Bruce, the owner of the apartment we were staying at in New York had mentioned that on the Saturday we were there we would see something strange on the streets, something a little unusual. On Saturday we got up and headed out to Brooklyn mid morning. We noticed a few people in Santa costume on the streets and just thought it was just some eager Santaphiles. When we came back into Manhattan in mid-afternoon the East Village was swarming with people in Santa costumes, all of them in various states of drunkeness. The SantaCon is a charity raising pub crawl that starts mid morning and meanders all over Manhattan picking up Santa’s on the way. As we ate dinner in a burger diner in the East Village we were surrounded by drunken Santa’s discussing the day’s antics. I wish Bruce hadn’t been so mysterious and had told us it was on, we would definitely have joined in!
Brooklyn Flea Market
The day we headed out to Brooklyn we spent a few hours at the Brooklyn Flea Market. Filled with vintage and hand-made goodness this market is perfect for picking up some unique Christmas gifts, there are even special Christmas themed markets twice before Christmas.
Wander the streets!
All the above were amazing things to see but I think my favourite of all was just wandering the streets and soaking in the atmosphere. New York City goes all out at Christmas time and the vibe was just incredible.
The New York Fire Fighters getting in the Christmas Spirit.
Even Wall Street got in on the act!
Radio City Christmas Tree
The decorations on 5th Avenue in Midtown were incredible.
A spot of Christmas graffiti.
A magical Christmas dinosaur outside the American Museum of Natural History.
Have you spent Christmas in New York? What are your favourite things to do and see?
4 Responses to “Christmas in New York City: Time To Be Merry”
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Makes me want to go to the library and the fleamarkets…and the whole place really…
As always great post Tom. I did some of those most of those things on my recent trip. My two favorite were skating in Bryant park and the Rockerefeller Center. I already miss NYC.
I HEART NYC!!!
Manhattan, New York is the best, most richest, most beautiful, most richest borough/city in the East and through all of The United States of America. AND PLUS, IT’S THE CITY THAT DOESN’T SLEEP. I HEART NYC!!!!!!! NYC IS THE BOMB, EVEN WAY BETTER THAN LOS ANGELES. NEW YORK CITY IS THE BEST CITY OUT OF ALL CITIES!!!!!!!!