Oh yes, we went to New York.

So ever since we went to New York last year, we have been dying to go back. And is there anything more magical than New York at Christmas? We thought not, so we wanted to go back in December. Now mind you, we booked tickets and started planning in September because we thought, "We don't need Christmas presents, we have enough things! Let's make a memory!" And then in November we bought a house. And we needed things. A lot of things. But we also figured that if we didn't go now, we might not get the chance to in the future, and so we kept our plans, left our kind of unpacked and empty new house and had an amazing time!

We took a red-eye again, and this time had a tiny lay over where we transferred to this plane. This picture equals Philip thinking we are going to die. He's not a fan of the small planes.

And when we walked out on to the tarmac to get on this suburban with wings, it was 17 degrees, and I quickly decided that we'd made the biggest mistake of our lives. Once we got there, we checked into our hotel and headed straight to the Radio City Music Hall to watch the Rockettes in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Oh, it was spectacular indeed. Maybe I wasn't ballsy enough to take pictures until the very end, so I only caught the manger scene, but I'm not going to lie, I was thrilled that they finished up with that, rather than just being all Santa-ish the whole time. And I tell ya, those girls have legs for miles. Me stalling in the lobby taking a picture so that I didn't have to go back outside in the bitter cold. And why is it that people try to get artistic when taking your photo with your camera? This lady literally got down on one knee to capture this magnificent/uggo shot of us. Really? Was it worth the strain? We ate a lot of food. And that sentence will define about 3/4 of the pictures that we took. Here we are at Lombardi's, assessment: good, certainly not Grimaldi's.

After we polished off our entire pizza, we walked around Little Italy, which had lovely lights and was so so quiet in comparison to everywhere else. I didn't take any pictures though because I am awesome. And then after we walked off a couple calories, we decided to eat for the fifth time that day, and went to Serendipity.

Philip got the peanut butter frozen hot chocolate, and I got the normal one.

Oh my word, heaven-sent.

I just don't understand how they can get the little icy flakes in there and have it be so dang delicious!

"Why are there four straws? I'm not sharing," says me.

The next morning we woke up and went to the Rockefeller building to get stand by tickets for Jimmy Fallon (gigantic fail), and happened upon this amazing wonder of a tree.

"Merry Christmas Philip and Melissa," says tree.

"Thank you, and merry Christmas to you, New York!" says us.

And then the man that took our picture, took a picture of his friend. Sweet huh?

We then went to our beloved Prime Burger that we discovered on our trip last time, and sat in the same spots and were served by the same waiter.

"I'll have some hot chocolate," says my eye bags.

"And a side of bacon," says Philip's.

And of course, we had to go to FAO Schwarz, because it is heaven on earth, and take pictures with Lego statues for my friend Kelli.

"Ho ho legooo!" says Santa.

I know, you are wondering how I think of all of these hilarious quotes. I'm gifted.

We then walked over to Central Park which isn't as pretty when there are no leaves, but I still managed to take a thousand pictures of nature, and of Philip when he would oblige.

I kinda love this picture. And do you want to know why we are the only ones on that path? Because the temperature was hovering around 22 degrees. No one but tourists with a need for pictures were out and about.

And by the ice skating rink right before we went ice skating. Okay, that's a lie. We didn't go because we remembered that neither of us particularly love ice skating, and didn't want to pay money to bruise our tail bones.

After we went to our hotel to defrost and take a nap, we headed to the Rockefeller center again, and I sang the 30 Rock theme song while in front of this sign.

And the tree again.

This is a replica of the star that is on top of the tree.

We went to Burger Heaven for dinner, which was made famous by Celebrity Apprentice or something, but it definitely wasn't made famous by their food. Pass on it when you go to New York.

And after that we went down to Macy's, as in THE Macy's, and fell in love with all of the decorations and window displays and lights on the buildings.

And though we didn't buy anything, we kept walking around and taking more pictures of how lovely the buildings were all dressed up in their holiday best.

Don't worry, just getting decorating ideas for next year, or when I someday have the resources to have bajillions of lights and balls in every nook and cranny.

And clearly we worked up a large appetite by looking at pretty things, so we went to Max Brenner's for dessert. And what do you know, they sat us at the same table as last year! Weirdy weird weird.

I got some churros to dip in chocolate, caramel and raspberry dipping sauce, which I inhaled without even offering any to Philip.

And Philip got the same thing as last year, which was some peanut butter concoction, that might have put him in a light coma later that night.

Amazing.

Day three started out with going to The City Bakery for their famous hot chocolate. I of course didn't take a picture, but their hot chocolate was more like melted Hershey's bars. It was so thick and so rich, I could only drink like half without needing to then drink about a gallon of water. We also went to Chinatown, but it was crazy busy, and there was nothing that I thought was worth haggling for. So we went back to the hotel, and the walk took longer than we thought and before we knew it, it was time to go to the Phantom! So we rush to the subway, and I got us on the wrong train, so we got off and pretty much speed walked/ran about 12 blocks. We made it just in the nick of time, and were super red and sweaty. See?

Um, Phantom. It was good, but not a favorite. I wanted to see it since it is a classic, but when your first musical is Wicked in New York, other shows are hard to compare.

We decided since it was a warm 40 degrees that we wouldn't mind standing outside waiting in line for Grimaldi's. So we went to Brooklyn, where we got another favorite picture.

And we waited in line and listened to other people's conversation, which is a favorite past time of mine.

We were once again seated in the same spot as last year, crazy, and promptly finished our large pizza. And we might have got icecream at Brooklyn Icecream afterwards. We ate a lot.

We went back to Rockefeller center (we were kind of obsessed with it) and walked around taking pictures of everything and with everything. And I have truly never seen more people in one spot in my entire life. It was insane.

The snowflakes on this building danced to music. It was like Disney took over the city for the month, that is how magical it was.

Oh for cute...

Does everyone in the world know that if you push the capture button on your camera down half way, it will auto focus? Nobody in New York did. Hence this blurry picture that was a vast improvement over the one taken immediately before it.

And just to make sure that it wasn't my camera being dumb, that it was indeed our photographers, I had to try this one, which incidentally is an adorable picture of my adorable husband. And yes, it was the photographers.

Day Four.

This was our last scheduled day in New York. It was supposed to rain, so I packed our umbrella and since we were flying out that night, I decided to go with a ponytail, which as evidenced by the following picture, was obviously a mistake. We went to Kitchenette for breakfast, and walked through ridiculous wind and rain that almost destroyed our umbrella and left us looking like this.

And about two minutes after we took this picture, we got a call saying that our flight for that night was cancelled due to weather. Hmm, okay? So we enjoyed our breakfast, because it was SERIOUSLY delicious (the gingerbread pancakes with pumpkin butter pretty much changed my life), while we made calls and texts to figure out who would cover us the next day since we were both scheduled to work. Whoopsies.

And once that was all sorted out, we decided to make the most of our extra day and went and got tickets for Mary Poppins and did a little shopping.

Philip still trying to get work things figured out.

And since we are creatures of habit, and sometimes really like to eat food that we've had before and we know is good, we went to The Burger Joint, where we once again had amazing cheeseburgers, and drank a milkshake in about 7 seconds. Mmm, food.

If you have to see either Mary Poppins or Phantom of the Opera, see Mary Poppins! It was so stinkin' cute, and I was dying to be a chimney sweep by the end of the show. Such a happy show and I wanted to skip afterwards. (Right Jake?)

Look how close we were!

Okay so the girlfriend in front of me kept putting her long ratty ponytail over her chair and it would land on my lap. So the first time, I "accidentally" pulled it when I was putting my purse on the floor. And then the little devil threw it back on my lap again! Rrrrg. So that time I not so gently scooted it off my lap with my program, and then she moved it and leaned to her mom and I'm supposing that she told her I was playing with her hair or something, but she didn't do it again. Success. Philip told me I should have just asked her to move it. Puh-lease, like I could do that.

"I just didn't imagine it would be this orange."

What movie?

And then Day Five, which happened to be our real last day, we walked through the park again,

and you guessed it, went back to Rockefeller center.

And how was it that I have never noticed this amazing cathedral? I must have walked past it 12 times on our trip and didn't see it until our last day.

Incredible.

And that's it! Such a great trip, I'm so happy and grateful that things worked out the way they did and we were able to make this happen! It was definitely a merry Christmast present to ourselves. Once again, if you are planning on a trip to New York, please let me send you my four page word document with helpful hints and whatnot. And then perhaps I can jump in your suitcase and come with you!

Merry Christmas 2010!