Christmas Morning at the Graf House

Stars Delight! It's Christmas Eve Night!

That's what my sweet Grandma Marilyn always says. Our Christmas Eve was wonderful, filled with fun and family and laughter. We saw Avatar in 3D (highly recommend it) with the family, then went shopping for some last minute gifts, and socks for us to wear while we're here. :) In the evening we enjoyed a delicious Christmas Eve dinner at the Harding's house. I got the best of both worlds, since my parents and Brandon came too! It was a perfect evening. I'm so glad mine and Klane's families are friends and that they get along so well. It makes things so much more fun!

At events like these I usually forget to take pictures because I'm too busy enjoying the event. So I only got pictures of the table, the nephews, and the food. Sorry, everyone else. I still love you guys.

One Last Look

Before we leave the city for Christmas, I wanted to catch one more glimpse of the tree at Rockefeller Plaza. It's really spectacular, and I actually like the crowds of people gathered at Rockefeller to admire the lights. They add to the energy there, the spirit of Christmas you feel while walking around. I love watching people carrying their shopping bags, taking pictures, or talking excitedly about their holiday trip to New York. It makes me appreciate NYC that much more to see how much people love visiting here.

We're heading to bed early so we can leave our apartment at 3 am to catch our 6:00 flight! Pray for decent weather in Chicago tomorrow! (We have a layover.)

Light Show and other "Holiday" Things

I already loved the giant snowflakes covering Saks.
But then I saw this:



It made me giddy. I love Christmas!

Today I got off work early, so I took the long way back to the subway to see some holiday lights. The lights in Midtown are beautiful. Most trees are lit up and there are Christmas trees, garlands and wreaths in all the businesses, decorating storefronts and adorning the hotels. The display and giant tree at Rockefeller really is spectacular. This was my first time seeing the finished tree up close. It's so beautiful! I even got a little Christmas shopping done along the way, stopping at a stand on the street for some cute (and cheap!) items, which must remain secret for now.

I'm still trying to get used to the fact that a lot of people here don't celebrate Christmas. I'd say over half the patients at the ortho office are Jewish. I keep slipping up and asking people if they're excited for Christmas, or where they're going for Christmas break, and then I remember and have to correct myself. It's funny. I've got to get in the habit of referring to this season as "the holidays".

Yesterday a little blonde kid was trying to choose colors for his braces and I said, "How about red and green, for Christmas?"

The kid looks up at me with a straight face and says, "I'm Jewish." in a totally 'duh' kind of way.

His mom jumped in and saved me, saying, "Holiday colors, what a good idea! You could do blue and white, for Hanukkah." and then as an afterthought, "Or black, green and red, for Kwanzaa!"

That blessed, helpful, politically correct woman. I now remember that at some point in my life I learned that Hanukkah colors were blue and white. And I had completely forgotten about Kwanzaa. I'm learning so much.

Happy Holidays!

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!

From our Christmas to yours

Get ready for some pictures... this is Christmas morning with the Hardings:

Opening "fresents" as Ethan would say.

Ryan was more interested in the paper than the present inside.

This is Tessa's "don't touch my present" face.

Ryan's favorite present: Tessa's music-playing jewelry box

or maybe Tessa's stroller...

Luke with the 1000 piece puzzle we finished at 1:00 am. Poor Santa had to wait for us to go to sleep

My man, manning the grill

Christmas breakfast chefs: Klane on eggs, Mike on bacon, Sara/Angie on pancakes

Merry Christmas from the Hardings to you!

(Klane hates this picture. I'm sorry babe, it was the only one of the two of us!)