Why You Should Visit New York at Christmas

It's September, X Factor is starting soon and shops are starting to change their displays... so surely I can mention the C word without being shouted at?

Anyway, technically if you were going to take my advice you'd need at least a few months notice before you could do it so here goes...

This time last year I booked a trip to New York with my best friend, Kayley. On a bit of a whim really, we both decided we wanted to go somewhere and found a fairly good deal for 3 nights between Christmas and New Year. To be fair, NYC is amazing at any time of year but the bright lights, big city thing gets ramped up around the festive period (from mid-October onwards, really). Even if you've been to New York before, the Christmas season is truly a sight to behold and you can have so many amazing experiences and see so much more than you can at any other time of year.

Shops and window displays

Christmas shopping in New York, can it really get any better? All the decorations and Christmas ranges seem on another level to what we have in the UK so even if you were just window shopping and only buying a few bits it's amazing just to be there. It does get VERY busy, especially on the streets but for me that just added to the atmosphere.

The displays in Macy's windows are a sight to be behold and the sheer scale of some of these stores has to be seen to be believed! America really does go all out for Christmas and NYC is no exception.

new-york-christmas-trees

Macys-christmas-window-display

Macy's-at-Christmas

Christmas-store-decor

christmas-baubles

new-york-shops-at-christmas

Saks-at-Christmas

Huge Christmas trees and light shows

Probably the most well known Christmas tree is the one outside the Rockefeller centre near the ice rink, now I wouldn't necessarily recommend that particular place for ice skating because it gets really stupidly busy but you absolutely must see the tree lit up and all the decorations that are around it, you can get some amazing photos. There's also a free light show on the front of the SAKS store (you can see this and the Rockefeller tree at the same time, bonus!) which happens every 10 minutes between the hours of 5-11pm so there's plenty of opportunity to catch it.

Saks-light-Display

Rockefeller-Christmas-tree

Rockefeller-Center-Christmas

Rockefeller-ice-Skating

New-York-at-Christmas

Ice skating in Central Park

I'm just going to put this out there, I am an absolutely shocking skater, I can't do it to save my life. I did it purely for the Snapchats and Instagrams! I'm so pleased I did it though just to say I had aswell, it isn't free but it's not ridiculously priced; during the week including skate hire it's around $25 but at weekends and actual 'holiday' dates it is a little more expensive. Wollman Rink in central park is much, much bigger than the one at Rockefeller and therefore far less crowded which I much preferred.

Wollman-Rink

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