Christmastime on Fifth Avenue

Wednesday night was the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony. For the past several weeks, Klane and I have walked through Rockefeller Plaza on the way home, watching the progress on the tree decoration. I've been so excited every time I see it. So of course I wanted to attend the lighting. (And the fact that Michael Buble would be performing was just an added bonus.)

We ate dinner at home while watching the first part of the celebration on TV. For some reason, I naively assumed it would be as easy to attend this Christmas celebration as it was with Winter's Eve. I didn't stop to think about the fact that this is a nationally televised event, with multiple music superstars performing, and loads of security stretching within blocks of the Plaza in every direction. I was just like, "Hey, we walk through there every other day! Let's just drop by!" So we hopped on the train.

Arriving an hour after the program began, we hit a wall of people about halfway between the Plaza and 6th Avenue. Working our way through the crowd got us within 30 yards of the big screen showing exactly what was playing on our TV at home. And it was raining. I was pretty frustrated.

this was the view of the screen.

Realizing we can see the tree anytime we want in the next few weeks, we decided to skip the lighting ceremony for another holiday activity on my list: checking out the window displays and holiday lights. It turned out to be such a fun evening. The city looks so beautiful with all the lights and Christmas decorations everywhere. We walked up 5th Avenue admiring the lights. And the window displays at Bergdorf Goodman exceeded my expectations by far. They were absolutely unreal. Please excuse the horrendous amounts of photos of them, they were just so intricate and incredible.

we did catch a glimpse of the tree over a sea of umbrellas as we walked past on our way to 5th Avenue, before being herded along by NYPD.


(there were a lot of cops to herd people. crowd control.)



giant ornaments on 6th Avenue


My cute husband, who came out with me even though he's been really sick all week.
He's a sweetheart.



We stepped inside Saks Fifth Avenue and I literally gasped when I saw the beautiful decorations inside. I wasn't expecting to step into a winter wonderland! It's really gorgeous in there. And I'm a sucker for white twinkle lights. So magical!





on to Bergdorf Goodman, home of the famous window displays.





This window has hundreds of spiral staircases of different sizes, ranging from human sized to miniature. Very intricate, very cool.



This window had a storybook theme. Everything in it was created entirely out of paper, including these beautiful roses and branches. Amazing.




This one is awesome. From the sidewalk looking in the window, it appears you're looking down into a room from above. It is so cool!



This cute little girl was so entranced, I had to snap a shot.


we caught a glimpse of the tree about 40 minutes after the celebration ended. It is pretty spectacular. It's around 70-90 feet tall, and has over 5 miles of christmas lights strung throughout the branches. Amazing!