Well hey everyone!
Welcome to another blog post about our December 2023 trip to New York to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday.
Yeah, December. Christmastime.
And right. It’s nearing the end of January. But you know…
All through the year, folks.
Oh also, as a little teaser of things to come on the blog, this happened earlier this week.
Yup. Myles is officially a Walt Disney World cast member. He started his Disney College Program this week. But I’m not gonna get too into that at this point since I am gonna do a post on that a little bit later. Well, at least on our trip down to check him in and what not.
I will say his first week has gone great. He seems to really be enjoying it.
Which like – of course he is. He’s living at Walt Disney World and work hasn’t started yet.
On with Day 2!
Our 2023 “Happy 80th Mom!!” New York City Christmas 2023 trip: Day 2
Oooh you guys. Our first morning waking up in New York City.
I mean, not the first like ever.
I’ve woken up in New York City before.
But the first one of this trip.
We had some early morning plans today so we were up by 7AM. Which, according to this sign?
Was a good thing.
Because, yeah, the plan was to try and take advantage of the free breakfast scene at the hotel today before heading out. And I mean, this was a good scene you guys.
There were a lot of buffet items available.
Non-hot items, like pastries and fruit and what not…
And hot items – eggs, bacon, sausage, breakfast potatoes…
Plus they had a made-to-order station where they would make omelets, eggs any way, and avocado toast.
It was a pretty stellar spread for a free hotel breakfast situation.
I have no pictures of actual food, but I went in for an omelet, breakfast potatoes, bacon, and sausage. And coffee obvs squad.
I remember everything being pretty good, with the exception of the sausage, which was very overcooked. The omelet, though, was especially nice.
OK so. LIke I said, today we had some morning plans. Specifically, we – yes, all 23 of us – were going to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular and our performance time was at 10:00.
But – they ask that you get there an hour before.
So right. We had to get 23 people all the way from Times Square to Rockefeller Center by 9AM.
And like – this was Myles at 8:34.
This was gonna be a challenge.
Though everyone was walking, it was near impossible to get everyone together at the same time so we all headed into the streets in groups. Chris, Paulette, Jeremie, and my mom walked together for example.
The five of us (me, Nickie, Owen, Myles, and Hannah) were our own group this morning. By 8:40, we were in the lobby.
Things were going to be fine.
We should be there with plenty of time to spare. I mean, the walk is only like 7 minutes. In fact, look, we are almost there you guys.
No worries whatso…
Wait.
Oh no.
What’s that?
Temptress.
OF COURSE we went in.
I’m not made of stone you know.
I’m made of banana pudding.
Delicious Magnolia Bakery banana pudding. And don’t worry you guys, we made it into the line at pretty much exactly 9:00AM and were inside by five past. With the rest of the fam squad.
Including Mikey, who here looks like he is having the time of his life.
Ha. I’m kidding of course. We were all excited. Look at all these excited faces.
And it was pretty exciting. Most of us had actually never seen the Rockettes before, myself included. And like, you know. You HAVE to see the Rockettes at some point.
Once we were all inside, we went and found our seats before figuring out the whole concession situation.
And OF COURSE we took some pictures. We love ourselves.
Including one with the birthday girl!
We then headed downstairs to the bathroom. The hope was that this trip would negate any need to visit the facilities during the performance.
…
…
It didn’t.
Spoiler alert.
When we got down to the bathrooms, the women’s room of course had a very long line. The men’s room though? A lovely experience. We even took advantage of the comfortable seating outside while we waited for the girls to make it through their what-looked-like-a-hellish experience.
Straight up loungin.
There was also this rando bucket advertising Tony’s Chocolonely Bars. The bucket was closed, just beckoning someone to peek inside. I definitely felt like I was that someone. So I carefully lifted the lid.
And inside?
There was just all this free chocolate. Just a big pile of free chocolate.
See kids. It pays to be inquisitive.
Just outside the bathroom was the concession stand.
Where Scott offered to buy us some Irish Coffees (well and some Pepsis as well).
Those Irish Coffees were pretty great things. AND they came in a souvenir “Rockettes Christmas Spectacular” cup. I love souvenirs. Especially when they come with alcohol.
OK – let’s get back to our seats.
As you can see from the picture below, we were behind Chris, Paulette, and Jeremie.
And as you can see from the picture above? I’m seven years old.
Teddy you guys. Teddy was excited.
I also love how Holly is just sort of peeking out the side of that picture completely emotionless with those hella-stylish 3D glasses. Total Lambda Lambda Lambda vibe.
Clap your hands everybody. Everybody, clap your hands.
But yeah, Teddy man. He was into it.
Dude comes PREPARED.
And he wasn’t the only one. Why didn’t I get the binoculars memo?
But I mean, well…everyone was excited you guys.
Lookit. Look how excited.
Like look at that picture. Matilda, Gwen, Sophia, AND Mr. Keaton from Family Ties. All excited.
So much excite.
And it was well-warranted. I couldn’t take any photos while the show was going on, but man. Why has it taken so long to see this show? Everyone loved it so much. Like everyone. Adults and kids. It was so festive and really an impressive show. After the show ended, we were all trying to figure out what our favorite parts were. Some people said the Nutcracker scene. Others the Nativity. I’d say mine was probably the Wooden Soldiers scene. But all of it was pretty great.
And seeing it so early in the morning made for an awesome way to kick off the day.
When the show ended, we all found our way outside and regrouped.
Ahem. I said we regrouped.
That’s better.
Since we were in the neighborhood and we heard the nighttime crowds were pretty insane, we walks up a block to check out the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.
And I mean, of course some pictures of us in front of said tree. Because again. We are big fans of ourselves.
I also attempted to get a picture of the Michigan Goodys in front of the tree but I couldn’t manage one where everyone was looking at the camera and/or making a camera-ready face. Still though. These are hella-cute.
At this point, it was getting close to lunchtime so a few of us decided to head over to Bryant Park to check out the Holiday Market.
But while we walked in with dreams of ice skating, hot chocolate, and cheese-based foodstuffs, those dreams were quickly replaced with claustrophobia, random body odors, and crowd-based anxiety.
Place.
Was.
Crowded.
Is what I am saying to you now.
The lines for all the food booths were pretty long, so there was a lot of, “I mean, should we wait in that line? Or maybe that one? But that one seems a little long for just cookies” going on.
While the rest of us were hemming and hawing about what lines were worth waiting in, the Pittmans had the foresight to get in the empanada line. And the generosity to share their spoils.
Look at Scarlett and Sophia. Both happy to have such intelligent and kind parents.
The empanadas WERE delicious. I mean of course they were. They were empanadas.
But the decision was made at that point to move on from this insanity. And everyone sort of scattered to their chosen lunch spot. We went the easy route and hit up the Chik-fil-A near the hotel and bring the food back to our room.
I went in for the Spicy Deluxe Sandwich Meal (served with waffle fries, of course.)
This afternoon was left free for everyone to do whatever they wanted. And despite our fears of cult-joining and rampant destruction, everything worked out fine.
Go figure.
Nickie, Myles, and Hannah had an important errand to handle. Both Nickie’s and Myles’ iPhones were having some issues so they went to the nearest T-Mobile store to see what we could do in terms of an upgrade.
Then though? They went to the nearest Verizon store on account of T-Mobile couldn’t do much in terms on an upgrade.
They walked out with new iPhone 15s and a new plan.
Pretty productive day over there.
The Florida Goodys, meanwhile, headed over to Cornelia Street on account of Jeff is a HUGE Taylor Swift fan.
Nah. Kidding. It’s Shannon.
Boy, that Taylor Swift sure is popular.
She’s like this generation’s Toni Basil.
They also met up with Chris, Paulette, and Jeremie to spend some time in the square.
Times Square.
Get it? Cuz I said they spent some time there.
Time.
Whatever. It was between that and a joke about how both Times Square and Taylor Swift can be abbreviated with “TS.”
So consider yourself lucky.
They also grabbed some photos with The Naked Cowboy.
Hrm, I wonder if “The Naked” is his God-given first name.
Owen and I put out the word that we were heading up to my mom’s room to hang out, watch some TV, and play some games before getting ready for the night.
When we got there, mom was watching a Hallmark Christmas movie so of course that took up our attention for a bit. I believe it was about a woman who grew up in a small town but has since left for a demanding job in the big city. Coincidentally, her job brought her back to her small town and she was faced with tough decisions as well as the potential for real love and a newfound appreciation for the season.
Have you seen that one?
Soon after, though, we were joined by Scott, Gwen, Matilda, and Sophia. Sooo, we broke into teams and played some Taboo. Matilda very much enjoyed the buzzing aspect.
Sophia also mysteriously had a pretzel. I’m pretty sure she pulled that thing out of her back pocket.
The Marshalls – Holly, Brad, and Teddy – also came up a little bit later to join.
AND Brad brought bourbon!
In total, I think we spent a little over an hour and a half up there. It ended up being a lot of fun. Who knew mixing board games with alcohol would be such a good time?
Eh fine. I guess you don’t need alcohol. Look how happy these three were.
And as far as I knew, they hadn’t had any alcohol. I mean, I wasn’t watching them the whole time. Or even really part of the time. But still. I’m like 75% sure.
At around 3:45, we all made the call to head back to our respective rooms to get ready. While this entire weekend was to celebrate the awesome that is my mom, tonight was her official birthday dinner so we were all stepping it up a little bit. Like, we all looked even better than we normally do.
I know. Can a star shine brighter?
By 5:30PM, Nickie and I were looking schwank so we went down to hang out with the Pittmans and the Marshalls a few floors down for some pre-dinner cocktails. Aw look. Here I am toasting with the kids (who, again, I am relatively certain were drinking beverages devoid of alcohol.)
They really love saying “cheers” and clinking glasses.
I know this because we did this close to twenty times. And these kids were traditionalists, man. They expected me to take a sip every single time.
The cutest drinking game of all time.
But eventually, things had to come to an end. I mean, we had to get to dinner.
Plus, these kids were getting me drunk.
Speaking of.
So we went back upstairs to our room to grab Myles, Owen, and Hannah and I poured some whiskeys for the rest of the whiskey-drinkers in our crew to bring down to the lobby. And down all of us went.
Myles, Owen, and Hannah joined us shortly after my fifteenth toast and all of us went downstairs to meet up with the rest of the crew.
Disclaimer: That is Matilda pictured above with Myles and Owen. NOT Hannah. OK, back to your regularly scheduled blog post.
Once down in the lobby, we really didn’t have much time to hang out and enjoy our drinks since we had to head out on our walk to the restaurant.
Sooooez. Out into the streets, whiskey in hand, I went.
New York, New York. It’s a helluva town.
So just to be clear, you guys. We had 23 people, right? And I mean. It was like less than two weeks until Christmas and we were in New York City. Getting a table for that many people at a nice restaurant was not an easy task.
But Scott knew a guy. Who knew a guy. And he scored a table – a very big table – at an Italian place called Arno. Which was not only supposed to be a great place but was also only a 6-minute walk from the hotel.
Which it turned out was the perfect amount of time to finish a whiskey.
Everything was coming up Milhouse.
Once inside, we were led to our table and like, this place was pretty AF y’all.
And check out this table. It’s like one of those rich people tables where you have to yell when you want someone to pass the pepper.
We took our seats and Teddy came prepped, man. Like dude brought a churro.
Such a pro.
I hope that doesn’t come back to haunt him later.
Foreshadowing.
As with most great dinners, this one started with drinks. I ordered a Dirty Grey Goose Martini.
Pre-dinner drinks FTW!
I should also note at this point, I stood up and gave a short-but-incredibly-well-written toast to my mom. I won’t paste the full toast here but you can be sure of two things – (1) it talked to the incredible person my mom is and (2) I did make her cry.
And I’m sure you can find the full toast posted on YouTube under some sort of heading like “Celebrity Blogger Toasts Amazing Mom” or “Handsome and Articulate Son Gives Toast of the Century to Obviosuly Well-Loved Mother.”
I’ll wait while you search.
…
…
No?
Nothing?
Ahem.
We started off with some Caprese-type, Roasted Red Pepper situation. Honestly, I don’t fully know what this was completely. While we did order some things off the standard menu, we were also given a special menu due to our larger party size.
I do remember this was good though. Very fresh and what not.
And look guys. Meat. And cheese!
Yum. Town.
These Baked Clams were also pretty incredible things that I enjoyed putting into my mouth.
As was the Fried Calamari.
All the starters were obvs squad awesomepantz. But let’s get on with the main dishes, right?
Ordering off the special menu, I went with the Veal Scallopini with a side of Risotto.
And whoo-golly that was a good dish. Like, seriously this was delicious. The veal was insanely tender and that risotto was all kinds of rich and creamy.
There were 23 of us so I mean, I can’t go through everyone’s dish. But I will say the Lobster Ravioli was the most oft-ordered dish of the night.
I will also say these were very good Lobster Raviolis. I know this because I tried one of my mom’s. On account of she is very generous and I am very greedy. It’s a real good give-and-take.
I also, for some reason, have not only one picture of Carrie’s Chicken Pasta dish with Risotto.
But I also have a picture of her holding said dish.
This is surprising not only because I have no other pictures of dishes, for example – Nickie’s Bolognese – but also because neither Carrie nor I have any idea what this dish was. This is what we in the industry call sub-par blogging.
Glad you came, aren’t you?
For dessert, the main event was this beautiful cake the servers brought out.
It was my mom’s birthday, you see.
They also brought out this dessert sampler situation. And I can attest, due to my dedication to research, everything was good.
And. AND. A few of us got some Espresso Martinis on account of it’s like having coffee with dessert but more alcohol-y.
Whatever. The blur adds to the effect. It’s like you were there.
But overall – I will say everything was rull good.
Now, as mentioned and showcased, this was a really long table. In fact, the table was SO long that none of us on this end of the table really had much idea of what was going on at the other end of the table. This included, but was not limited to, Teddy throwing up all over the floor. Literally, I had zero idea that happened until I saw Brad cleaning it up.
I also missed Teddy informing everyone he came into contact afterwards that he did, in his own words, “Barf.” Dude was pretty pleased with himself.
There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere about eating a churro before a big meal but I am gonna choose to ignore that. On account of I really like churros.
Dinner ended at around 8:30, which is obviously early. Especially when you’re in the “city that never sleeps” and what not. So some of us – me, Nickie, Jeff, Sheila, Shannon, Scott, Carrie, Chris, Paulette, and Jeremie – made a plan to hit the rooftop bar across the street from the hotel. Myles, Owen, and Hannah were going to hang out with Gwen and Matilda back at the hotel. Mom was gonna go to bed. And the rest of the crew with the littles were calling it an early night.
The rooftop bar we were visiting that night was the Top of the Strand, a bar we visited back during our last New York City trip. And as I mentioned there, yes – this was in fact a rooftop bar in December. But no worries whatsoever on account of this bar is completely enclosed.
It’s like a greenhouse. But instead of growing plants, everyone is drunk.
And look you guys. When we walked in? Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was on!
Aw he’s so cute with his reindeer and the whole…
Uh. Oh. Hrm. Right.
Look, a Lagavulin.
It’s a real cool vibe in this place. And it definitely wasn’t as warm as the last time. Which was too warm.
That time? It was like a greenhouse. Except instead of growing plants, everyone is…
Oh right. I already told that joke.
But yah, we had a lot of fun at The Strand.
Lots of laughs, lots of drinks. We even ended up meeting this nice couple from Ireland who were vacationing in the US. I talked to the guy a little bit about sports, expecting him to obviously be a Celtics fan. But he turned out to be a Cavs fan. And weirdly, also a Browns fan?
I mean, I guess it’s not that surprising. Cleveland is a pretty cosmopolitan town.
But yeah, man. Good times all around.
Yeah sorry about that last picture. I think I was going for “sibling rage” or some sort of homage to The Three Stooges.
We ended up leaving the Top of the Strand at around 11PM. And yeah, I mean everyone was feeling good. When we walked outside, Nickie saw a pile of trash bags and thought they were snow.
It was like 50 degrees all day AND there were no other white trash bags – I mean, snow – anywhere else.
But yeah, I got it.
Also? In those trash bags was an old ironing board. Which Sheila thought might be something she’d like to take back to her room. Even though? There was already an ironing board in the room. She’s so greedy.
Look at these two. Having so much fun. With their trash bags and trash.
We were back in our room soon enough. And once there, we had one of those conversations with your kids where like you’re drunk and not hiding it and your kids are kind of ashamed to be related to you?
You know those conversations?
Yeah. Memories. Amirite?
Day 2 though. What a day. And we still have like one more day to go through. Well, like maybe three-quarters of a day.
So get three-quarters excited!
See you guys then.
Last post – Day 1
Next post – Day 3
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