Merry Christmas Eve! The boys have been asking to go ice skating at Winter Village in Bryant Park for a few weeks now, but we've been too busy to go. This year, as I remembered back to our first Christmas in Colorado when we took Gabriel ice skating for his first time on Christmas Eve, after a lovely morning in downtown Denver, I thought it might be a fun tradition, to take the boys ice skating on Christmas Eve followed by touring around the city seeing all the Christmas sights. Today did not disappoint!
We always try to time our arrival at the ice rink with the first cleaning, around 9:30a. They may have been running behind this morning, or changed their cleaning schedule this year, because we arrived just in time to skate for about 15 minutes before they cleared the ice. No big deal, we ran into friends from school so we had a way to pass the time while the zamboni did its thing. It started to get pretty crowded by the time the ice opened back up (another reason we time our morning arrival most weekends) but the boys didn't seem to notice. I am always impressed with how they are able to pretty much pick up their skill level right where they left off the previous year. Go Neuroplasticity! Gabriel has been skating for four seasons, and Judah for three, so they are pretty independent now. We can enjoy holding hands and making laps at decent speeds. When the crowds finally got to all of us, we enjoyed some of our Christmas baking cookies and headed to Grand Central station to visit the train museum and holiday train show...
After a sufficient time watching the model trains, and playing with ALL of the trains for sale, we decided to head to fifth avenue to see some store windows we missed out on from our first Christmas window outing. The weather was cold but not too cold when our morning began, but by now the temps were dropping and we knew the boys wouldn't last much longer. After taking the local train up Lexington and walking over at 50th st, we had to bag Saks Fifth ave windows and St. Pat's Cathedral, but we really wanted to make it to the Bergdorf Goodman windows all the way up at 59th st, so we headed north up fifth. By the time we got there, it really was pretty cold. The boys mildly enjoyed the funky Bergdorf windows, but they were also hungry so we decided to duck into the Plaza hotel (they have a whole host of cafes in the cellar level) to grab a quick bite. It was bustling, but we lucked out with a table at a cute little cafe that was away from the crowds where we ordered essentially fancy grilled cheeses (croque monsseurs). We were able to feel a part of the hustle and bustle without actually being in it, and the food was fantastic. win win. We finished up and decided to head home while everyone was still in a good mood. We also didn't want to be rushed to get ready for the Christmas Eve service. Such a fun day together!
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