Christmas Eve

i think pretty much everyday we woke up late and really took our time getting places, not what i had planned. but hey remember i said earlier the plans blew away with the blizzard. the kids woke up with excitement that morning anticipating their long awaited visit with santa @ macy's. by far the best santa i've ever seen. the line was so long, yet very entertaining. santaland had so much going on. we started the line with loads of pictures of santas & parades of the past. we then were called aboard santa's train to the north pole by this guy.

the conductor was so authentic, had a megaphone, great voice, and truly lived his part.

as we entered santaland, everywhere you turned there was something to see. the elves were busy working, getting the line moving, taking pictures, and greeting the passerbys. they were so friendly and really did a great job of getting the line to move.

the details that went into each of the scenes was just beautiful, you really couldn't see it all.

seth has said he always wanted a tree like this and i of course said it would be impossible. again i was proven wrong by macy's that nothing is impossible and there really are miracles on 34th street- seth gets real excited seeing it and states, "look mom, i told you, you could do it."  so after walking through santaland  at the end we met up with santa only to have claire refuse to take a picture - figures!

we spent a little time in macy's exploring the very small toy section and claire loved the puppets.  we thought about venturing out to see all the window displays, but halfway down the kids were more excited about getting to the zoo than seeing window displays.  we walked around a bit and clint got to see the madison square garden, which totally made his day.  yet i'm sure he would have liked it more if we would have seen maybe a fight there.  o well maybe next time.

so we walked to the next subway stop, and along the way were harassed and followed by people trying to get us to buy tickets to the ny skyline and the empire state building.

they not only followed us one block, but some would have probably treked the second if i had not stepped in.  clint was just encouraging him after i specifically said stay the course and don't make any eye contact.  he thought it was hilarious, i found it annoying.  and even more irritating when one of them said we looked like millionaires and i barked back that neither one of us even had a job - so there.  i know a bit overboard, but if you would have heard them you probably would have too, well maybe not, i tend to over react. 

so after that fiasco, we entered the train and got off at columbus circle, wow is all i can say.  there was so many different booths at the holiday market that i'm pretty sure my brain was on creative overload and probably came up with 20 different careers i could pursue.

from there we walked around central park up the east side to the central park zoo.  the park was as beautiful as the day we got there.  here is where the kids mentioned that enchanted was filmed.  that's my kids, they'll be pros at scene it in no time.

we thought about riding the horse and carriage, but they actually stunk real bad, with their poop bag in tow.
when we arrived at the zoo, the kids loved that it was still full of snow and animals that they had never layed eyes on.

we then walked over to the children's zoo and boy was that full of photo ops.  they basically had a playground at every stop.

this old tree was the entrance into the children's zoo and also the hiding place of the very friendly squirrel that ate out of a young girl's hand and followed her around.  that i probably could have handled without a heart attack, but the peacock following us, was no good for my ticker.  i don't do birds, ask my hubby. (just kidding), but really i don't like birds especially those flying around or following me.

so after the zoo we took a lovely stroll from there all the way to our hotel on 72nd, which was a long walk.  i personally loved it, it was invigorating, but hunter of course was complaining again, so we had to make games along the way and he rode on clint's back a few times.  ms. claire the diva she was, had no problem, since i think we would have to surgically remove her from her stroller once we got home.  the walk home was the last thing we did that day in the city, besides me braving the crowds to visit the market for christmas dinner and watching christmas movies together.  it was a great ending to a busy day.

to be continued ...