Those who risk, win: I want to be a part of it, New York, New York!

This Christmas, as a throwback to our first Christmas together, Ryan and I went to New York City for the night. The first time, we went down on Christmas day and spent the day looking around at all the Christmas decorations in the city. It was nice because, being Christmas day, there were no crowds anywhere, including the ice rink at 30 Rock. Even if we didn't go skating, it was nice to be able to look down and see the whole thing unhindered. This year, we went down on Christmas Eve day and spent Christmas Eve/Christmas morning in NYC. Unlike the year we went on Christmas day, on Christmas Eve night, NYC is PACKED. At least, midtown is. Where we stayed, at the Gem Hotel, down by 1st and 2nd, there was essentially no holiday cheer and you couldn't really even tell it was Christmas. But, you could see Katz's deli from the hotel, so it all evened out for us.
Of course the first stop once we arrived was Katz's. You really should get a sandwich from Katz's at least once in your life, if you can. The pastrami is AMAZING. Buuut since the last time we went, last November, I got a pastrami sandwich, I figured this time I would get a corned beef sandwich. Bad choice. Not that the corned beef was bad, it's just that the pastrami was better. Lesson learned there. Next year, it's back to pastrami for me. I will make a sandwich trip to NYC a yearly tradition, I'm 100% certain Ryan will have no arguments on that. As a fair warning though, the sandwiches are a biiiiiiiiit expensive. Worth it, but expensive, and they are cash only. So, take heed before you go in. To be safe, if two people are eating, bring at least $50 in cash. Obviously more if there are more of you eating. Then again, if you're not big into eating piles of meat, you can share one sandwich between two people and safe yourself a bit of money there. Enough about the sandwiches though, I know you're DYING to know about the Christmas displays.
First, we decided to walk from the hotel to midtown, because, well, why not? It was only 3 miles and, in the words of Ryan, "if you can run a marathon, you can walk 3 miles." Point taken, so we did. The walk wasn't so bad actually, even if it was a little chilly. On the way we saw the Empire State building all lit up red and green, but I didn't take any pictures of that. Sorry. When we got up to all the good stuff, we checked out window displays and 30 Rock. I really like the Lord and Taylor's window display, even though I didn't get any pictures of that either. They had different scenes made out of cardboard cutouts, totally vintage and totally cute. Bergdorf Goodman's display was all the different seasons, which was really neat. Saks had a story of a Yeti, (apparently it's a thing), and a video that was projected on the side of the building every 4 minutes. Rockefeller center was amazing, as usual, but so crowded we only stayed long enough to get across the plaza. It was seriously over-packed. Then on the way back to the hotel, we trekked through Times Square and stopped by Macy's to check out their display.
The next morning, we went to breakfast at a little bakery that happened to be open. The food was nothing exciting, but we did get some red velvet cupcakes to go, which ended up being delicious. We left the city around 10 am on Christmas day in order to get home and eat dinner with the family. We unwrapped our gifts and wrapped up the night by watching Love, Actually. Overall a great trip to NYC and a great Christmas.
If you were wondering what I got, don't worry, I'll fill you in now. If you're expecting me to tell you all about the new running gear I got, you're going to be highly disappointed, as I got 0 in the way of running anything. Believe me when I say that's quite alright though. Ryan got me an amazing bracelet and necklace set that I absolutely love. I was really surprised by the gifts too, as I wasn't expecting jewelry of any sort. The only thing I said I wanted for Christmas was a Jimmy Graham jersey, so to get a bracelet and necklace was completely surprising. I'm doubly happy about the jewelry though because they're perfect for wedding jewelry. Don't worry, there's a picture at the end of the post. Ryan and I also got two camping chairs, which were straight off our registry, and perfect for the summer. For now, they're hiding in the back of our closet though. We also got a pizza stone (SCORE!), some baking sheets, and of course, a ton of gift cards. Oh yea, and back in NYC I bought a great new Adidas sweatshirt. It's tough to find the NEWEST Adidas gear around here ever since the Originals store in Cambridge closed. Anyways, today I decided to hit the after Christmas sales at Target and the malls and see if I could score anything. Mostly I went for the wrapping paper. My trip was a definite success though, considering everything at Target was 50% off. I got the wrapping paper, some bows, gift tags, a cute little wooden Merry Christmas sign, and best of all, two rolls of FAT lights. Then I went to the mall and got some workout clothes from Old Navy. You didn't expect me to go shopping without getting at least something to wear during running/boxing did you? Now I'm busy drooling over a pair of North Face boots that I desperately want, but really shouldn't buy. But since this post has spiraled out of control, I'll just leave you with a thousand pictures, some from now, some from our first Christmas in New York, we'll see where this goes. Enjoy.

Ok, the first two, I feel the need to explain. Having Picasa on my phone, I have my photos auto-backed up to Google. As part of Picasa, there is a feature called Auto-awesome. This feature puts different effects on pictures, depending upon the picture. Sometimes it collages, other times it puts a burst of photos together to make them move. In this case, it added snow and twinkles to this picture. I LOVE this feature, so I had to share both photos.