Thanksgiving in NYC

One of the staples of my Thanksgiving as a child was watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.  I’ve always dreamed of going, and this year we finally made it!  Call it a really last minute anniversary/holiday trip.

We left Wednesday night on the red eye.  The late flight was genius on Zach’s part, due to the fact that the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year to travel.  There were no crowds at all at Salt Lake International, and security was a breeze!  We arrived in New York at 6:00 am and by a stroke of holiday luck, we got an early check-in to our hotel!  We ditched our bags and got to freshen up before braving the crowds for the parade.  We took the subway and soon experienced the pandemonium.  There were NYPD officers EVERYWHERE; blocking off exits in the subways, blocking off sidewalks to major roads.  After trying to push our way through the crowds of people, we decided to find a different route – besides, people are not so friendly when they think you are trying to finagle your way through to a better spot.  We knew we had to get to Central Park West, but it took us twice as long to bob and weave our way through back roads and cross streets.  We finally reached the park and found our friends, Morgan and Britton.  Britt had been there since 5:00 am holding a spot at the front of the crowd and they were kind enough to let us stand and watch with them!

The parade was a bast – definitely a highlight of our holiday season thus far!  It was also so great to visit with our friends, even though it was really quick!  Considering we had slept a total of three hours, we decided to go back to our hotel to get some rest before we ventured out again.  Our first stop?  Some delish pizza…

…and a soda break, naturally!

I suddenly felt an urgency that we had to go shopping before Black Friday hit.  I knew that it was Thanksgiving afternoon and nobody would be in the stores, they would be with their families!  Unfortunately, some of the stores in SOHO were closed due to the holiday, and the ones that weren’t were pretty packed.  I still felt comfort inside that we hit a few places before the madness of the next morning and Zach scored some killer suits!  He’s been wanting a new suit for Christmas and I was delighted that he found two he liked, of course, extra skinny fit!  I had a blast sitting in the mens dressing room on a glamorous sofa watching him try on his sassy new duds.

That night, for our official Thanksgiving Dinner, we ate at The Water Club.  It’s a spiffy restaurant on the East River, technically it is a boat.  It was a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings.  We gobbled up our meal and looked out at the city lights, and did our traditional Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Classic toast!  Zach even had a sweet splurge and ordered a personal pumpkin pie!

The next day, we decided to conquer Black Friday.  It wasn’t the traditional escapade with my Mother, aunt, and cousins, but it sufficed.  We got some pretty sweet deals and we even scored some free swag!  Once you were inside the stores, it wasn’t that crazy, but once you made your purchase and went OUT….it felt like a stampede.  Zach was a sport, and stuck it out with me for several hours.  He would never completely come out and admit this, but he loves to shop as much as I do!

We hadn’t eaten lunch yet when 3:00 hit, and decided to hit up a local deli.  We ate near the window and watched the people passing by.  We even had our first celeb citing!  We walked the long way back to our hotel instead of taking the Subway and shopped just a little bit more.  The only reason Zach was patient with the second round is that we stopped at Pinkberry half way through.  The weather was incredible:  an average of 62 degrees during the day!

We had a late dinner reservation at the Mercer Kitchen, and walked around SOHO the rest of the evening looking at furniture stores and little boutiques.

The next day we met up with Zach’s brother, Sean and his wife Siri and their three kids.  We met at the mecca of my fast food heart:  Shake Shack!

It only took about 20 minutes, but the line of people was incredible!  It wrapped half way around the entire park!

It was definitely worth the wait (in my opinion).  After we grubbed, we tried to get tickets to the Flyers vs. Rangers game at Madison Square Garden, but had back luck with tickets.  It’s too bad too, because the kids were decked out in their Philly gear!  Look how excited Connor was…

We decided to venture into Central Park instead and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the crowd.

Then we parted ways with their cute family and went to our dinner reservation – our favorite place, Cafeteria!  We went last summer we were in town, and we couldn’t stay away from their famous mac n’ cheese!

Our last day, we took a car out to Jersey to the new Metlife Stadium for a Jets Game!  There were over 70,000 attending at the game…Zach’s version of Black Friday, haha!  I actually am very familiar with this NFL team, considering Zach and I watched a season of the Jets’ reality TV Show, Hard Knocks.  I am a big fan of the Jets coach, Rex Ryan!  We got amazing tickets on Stub Hub and got a firm idea of how loyal and devoted the Jets Fans are.

Meet Vinny, the biggest Jets fan alive.  Born and raised in Brooklyn, educated in every stat – every year – every player.  It was pretty intense.  He actually hit me in the face twice (on accident) because of a couple of outrageous calls by the refs!  After half time I went to get a soft pretzel and fruit cup, when I got back, Vinny was VERY disappointed in my food choice.  He yelled, “You come to Jets Stadium and you get a friggin’ FRUIT CUP!?  Was wrong wit you?”

The stadium was incredible, and better yet:  Jets won!

Going to NYC over Thanksgiving was kind of like the best of both worlds:  we got to enjoy the Thanksgiving Parade and then the day after Thanksgiving, alot of the Christmas lights were turned on around the city.  It was like being there for both holidays!  Four days is never enough in this city, and I don’t doubt if we both didn’t have jobs we loved…we’d stay there forever!

We couldn’t have asked for better weather, company, food, and memories.  No better way to celebrate three years together!

2 Comments
  • Whitney Allen
    November 29, 2011

    OH MY GOSH! Sounds like an amazing trip. You are freaking gorgeous. I love your scarf. I really want to try out the Shake Shack! I have heard it is amazing. They have one in DC and my sister has been. Hopefully next time I go out to visit her I can try it out!

  • K + Z
    December 5, 2011

    Whit, you HAVE to go when you visit Mikell in DC. You will love it!