I hope everyone had a good Christmas Eve and Christmas. I didn’t have the foresight or the energy to schedule a post for Christmas day and hope everyone had better things to do than check out my blog (though now there’s no excuse). I wanted to share some pictures of our trip into NYC for Christmas Eve with you guys. We–that would be the missus, her parents, my parents and myself–got up bright and early and headed down on the Connecticut/New York train into Grand Central. After a much-needed bathroom break we headed over to 30 Rock and went ice skating, which is something my mom wanted to do last year, but the line was way too long. We actually only waited in line about 20 minutes after the rink actually opened. The room where you rent the skates is way WAY too small and should probably have two doors for in and out, but the skating itself was a lot of fun. It’s been a while since I’ve been skating, but I felt pretty sure on my feet, even though they hurt like crazy thanks to the weird skates. Anyway, here’s some pictures of that big statue and the big tree from the ice I took with my phone.

From there we headed over to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Saks and then got some lunch at a place called La Bonne Soupe. I took another pic of St. Patrick because it’s just an impressive-looking place. Lunch was pretty great, La Bonne Soupe is, as I’m sure you’ve deduced, is a French place. I had a mushroom and barley soup that was fantastic. The meals also came with soup, bread and I got a Spaten, so I was happy all around. After lunch we swung by a friend’s workplace and got a nice little tour. Thanks again for that! From there we walked straight down Broadway about 20 blocks south. We passed through Times Square and even the Charmin Bathroom, though we didn’t stop in cause we didn’t need to use it, though the line didn’t look too long from outside. We then made our way down to Madison Square Garden where we saw the Cirque du Soleil show Wintuk, which was pretty weird (more on that in an upcoming post).

After the show, I walked them to Grand Central the way I used to walk to work when I was working in the city. I can’t walk down 6th without the lyrics to “This Used To Be Our Playground” on a loop in my head, but it was nice. Then we walked by Bryant Park and I was shocked to see all kinds of temporary shops, an ice skating rink where I used to eat and a bar and restaurant. It was nuts. Then we came home and that was that.I don’t know if you can see it in this picture, but one of the temporary shops had these sculptures made out of metal parts. They had a c-3PO, R2-D2 and Yoda that looked awesome. Maybe I’ll get those for Christmas next year.

Christmas itself was great and much more relaxing. The presents flowed like wine and everyone got some pretty great stuff. I scored a bunch of geeky stuff I’m sure I’ll be posting about more specifically and also a mandolin, trumpet and drum machine. I don’t know how to play any of those things, but expect some rad music to be posted at some point. Breakfast and dinner were fantastic and then we played a few rounds of Apples To Apples which was a lot of fun. So, I was pretty exhausted after the last two days, but I think a good time was had by all. Hopefully it was the same for you!