Visiting Santa at Santaland at Macy's in NYC is unbelievable!! The work that is put into the displays and the coordination all the elves have to have with one another must take a whole season. I had read somewhere, probably on some random person's blog as I tend to eavesdrop now and again, that Macy's had an elaborate maze set-up with several rooms with different Santas in them so they could have a higher turn-over rate. I simply had to know if this was true. Plus, the kids had to see Santa and what better place than the Big Apple. So, we get to the massive department store which still, to this day, boasts it is the biggest "in the world." I'm not sure as I've been to Harrods in London. Both at Christmas time. Macy's is by far, full of the rudest people! I digress. We climb to the 8th floor. I say climb because the last 4 escalators are out of commission and I could see why. They looked like they might have been the original escalators and the railings and sides were made of wood. Coming up to the 8th floor you are bombarded with a circus-themed toyland which you have to circle around to get to the beginning of the Santa line. We are greeted by a very festively dressed elf who points us down a cordoned off area. Walking down the dingy gray hallway I asked Matt why we were put in the boiler room. He chuckles and points to the multiple pictures on the wall depicting the growth of Macy's and its various parades and such and says "Boiler rooms don't have elves!" The cheerful elf in front of us claps her hands and says "Yea! You're almost there to see Santa!" "How long is the wait?" Matt asks her, eyeing the crowd in front of us warily. "Oh, only 45 minutes." We groan inwardly and think about the late 3:30pm time. Bad time. ET badly needs a nap, we need dinner soon and it's getting warm under our layered attire. But somehow the little elf cheered me up. The boys were happy and content to stand in line looking at the gray walls so I let it be. Shuffling our feet little by little we came upon the displays and oohed and aaahed at the trains and lights. A few more cheerleading elves later and we were at the end of our wait. It went by very quickly and the line had grown to a 2 1/2 hour wait behind us! Just before we were taken to see the Big Man, another elf took the boys by the hands and led them through dozens of lit trees talking to them and keeping their eyes on her. She led them to their special room where Santa was waiting. Ethan and Mason's eyes lit up; both with surprise and apprehension, but mostly a whole lot of happiness. Mason went straight to his lap where ET dragged his feet a bit and kept looking at me then back at him. He finally went and sat on his lap and another two elves took their picture while they shouted out "Star Wars!" "Transformers" and everything else they wanted as if he was going to forget to ask them or they were going to forget what they were going to tell him. We were then led out of the room and led to the exit. I craned my neck and nodded appreciatively. There were indeed multiple rooms with multiple bearded men, but no kid would be the wiser unless their parent or much older sibling thought it necessary to pass the secret. Fantastic!
Since the boys are not yet old enough to take to a Broadway show we found a marrionnette playhouse in Central Park to take them to instead. They are performing Peter Pan for the next year or so at the Swedish Cottage and is right across from the Museum of Natural History in the park. The performance itself was interesting but the boys enjoyed it. There was a bit of a modern spin on it that Mason clued into like why Tiger Lily wears a sari and not suede fringe. Or why Wendy and Peter Pan are the Lost Boys parents...yeah. The walk through the park was really nice and only mom complained about the 20 degree weather and snow. The boys ran and jumped and skated and just plain loved it all. We fed the squirrels peanuts and took in all the beautiful pure white scenery.
I had to explain to Ethan that we weren't smoking, but just blowing "smoke." Hmmm... the boys have been on a nebulizer the past couple weeks or so before going to NY and they nicknamed it the "smoker" so anything that blows smoke, steam, etc smokes. Fair enough. I was teaching Ethan how to make shapes with our breath. I don't think they'd ever seen their breath for so long before. Virginia gets cold, but 20 degrees is COLD!!!! Besides, VA is the coldest the boys have EVER been so they are clueless. It was so much fun just walking down the street in such a big city too with them. They had a blast and just babbled and asked questions and never complained.
Ahhh, yes! The "BIG" piano. You know, the one in the movie "Big." They had so much fun on this and if it wasn't $20,000 I'd have brought it home!
On the last day we were able to go see Rockefeller Center and see the iceskaters and the big tree. It was raining though so there weren't any skaters so we snapped a few photos and went to FAO Schwartz.
Visiting Santa at Santaland at Macy's in NYC is unbelievable!! The work that is put into the displays and the coordination all the elves have to have with one another must take a whole season. I had read somewhere, probably on some random person's blog as I tend to eavesdrop now and again, that Macy's had an elaborate maze set-up with several rooms with different Santas in them so they could have a higher turn-over rate. I simply had to know if this was true. Plus, the kids had to see Santa and what better place than the Big Apple. So, we get to the massive department store which still, to this day, boasts it is the biggest "in the world." I'm not sure as I've been to Harrods in London. Both at Christmas time. Macy's is by far, full of the rudest people! I digress. We climb to the 8th floor. I say climb because the last 4 escalators are out of commission and I could see why. They looked like they might have been the original escalators and the railings and sides were made of wood. Coming up to the 8th floor you are bombarded with a circus-themed toyland which you have to circle around to get to the beginning of the Santa line. We are greeted by a very festively dressed elf who points us down a cordoned off area. Walking down the dingy gray hallway I asked Matt why we were put in the boiler room. He chuckles and points to the multiple pictures on the wall depicting the growth of Macy's and its various parades and such and says "Boiler rooms don't have elves!" The cheerful elf in front of us claps her hands and says "Yea! You're almost there to see Santa!" "How long is the wait?" Matt asks her, eyeing the crowd in front of us warily. "Oh, only 45 minutes." We groan inwardly and think about the late 3:30pm time. Bad time. ET badly needs a nap, we need dinner soon and it's getting warm under our layered attire. But somehow the little elf cheered me up. The boys were happy and content to stand in line looking at the gray walls so I let it be. Shuffling our feet little by little we came upon the displays and oohed and aaahed at the trains and lights. A few more cheerleading elves later and we were at the end of our wait. It went by very quickly and the line had grown to a 2 1/2 hour wait behind us! Just before we were taken to see the Big Man, another elf took the boys by the hands and led them through dozens of lit trees talking to them and keeping their eyes on her. She led them to their special room where Santa was waiting. Ethan and Mason's eyes lit up; both with surprise and apprehension, but mostly a whole lot of happiness. Mason went straight to his lap where ET dragged his feet a bit and kept looking at me then back at him. He finally went and sat on his lap and another two elves took their picture while they shouted out "Star Wars!" "Transformers" and everything else they wanted as if he was going to forget to ask them or they were going to forget what they were going to tell him. We were then led out of the room and led to the exit. I craned my neck and nodded appreciatively. There were indeed multiple rooms with multiple bearded men, but no kid would be the wiser unless their parent or much older sibling thought it necessary to pass the secret. Fantastic!
Since the boys are not yet old enough to take to a Broadway show we found a marrionnette playhouse in Central Park to take them to instead. They are performing Peter Pan for the next year or so at the Swedish Cottage and is right across from the Museum of Natural History in the park. The performance itself was interesting but the boys enjoyed it. There was a bit of a modern spin on it that Mason clued into like why Tiger Lily wears a sari and not suede fringe. Or why Wendy and Peter Pan are the Lost Boys parents...yeah. The walk through the park was really nice and only mom complained about the 20 degree weather and snow. The boys ran and jumped and skated and just plain loved it all. We fed the squirrels peanuts and took in all the beautiful pure white scenery.
I had to explain to Ethan that we weren't smoking, but just blowing "smoke." Hmmm... the boys have been on a nebulizer the past couple weeks or so before going to NY and they nicknamed it the "smoker" so anything that blows smoke, steam, etc smokes. Fair enough. I was teaching Ethan how to make shapes with our breath. I don't think they'd ever seen their breath for so long before. Virginia gets cold, but 20 degrees is COLD!!!! Besides, VA is the coldest the boys have EVER been so they are clueless. It was so much fun just walking down the street in such a big city too with them. They had a blast and just babbled and asked questions and never complained.
Ahhh, yes! The "BIG" piano. You know, the one in the movie "Big." They had so much fun on this and if it wasn't $20,000 I'd have brought it home!
On the last day we were able to go see Rockefeller Center and see the iceskaters and the big tree. It was raining though so there weren't any skaters so we snapped a few photos and went to FAO Schwartz.
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