Amalia Kicks Off the Holidays in New York

-->

Last year Amalia celebrated Christmas in Nicaragua, touring the outdoor nativity scenes on view everywhere.  This Christmas she’ll be making snowmen and hanging her stocking over the fireplace in Grafton, Mass. at Yiayia and Papou’s house.  But last weekend in Manhattan Amalia kicked off the holidays in New York City style.

On Friday with Mommy and Yiayia Joanie she went to Rolf’s German Restaurant at 22^nd Street and Third Avenue, which is so famous for its over-the-top Christmas decorations that you absolutely have to have a reservation during the holidays.

Here she is sharing the view of decorations on Mommy's phone with Papi, who's in Nicaragua for the week.

At Rolf's there are so many decorations hanging from the ceiling that you start worrying about them falling on your head.

 

The next day, Saturday morning, the three of us went to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular --a New York ritual since 1933.

First Santa took off from the North Pole, headed to Manhattan with the Rockettes serving as reindeer.

Next came Amalia's favorite part--where  we put on 3- D glasses to see Santa fly in over Manhattan, with gifts tumbling out of his sleigh and falling right  towards us.

 

Of course everyone loves the famous  Wooden Soldiers number featuring the Rockettes falling down like dominoes.

The Rockettes boarded a two-decker bus that visited all the famous Manhattan locations in their Christmas glory, including skaters in Central Park and dancers in Times Square.

As always, the finale was the living Nativity, with real animals, and as always, I cried--just as I did nearly 40 years ago when I took my own kids to the Christmas show.

Next we walked through Rockefeller Center where the skaters were skating and the giant Christmas tree was being decorated behind scaffolding.

But the angels leading up to the tree were already blowing their trumpets.

We walked to the Plaza Hotel and had lunch in the food court in the basement with Uncle Bob and Aunt Robin, then paid a visit to the store of "Eloise at the Plaza". Amalia was so fascinated playing with pretend tea things in the tea room that we could hardly drag her  on to see the other rooms, including the fashion room and the play room and the Concierge's room.  She was having a rawther fancy tea.

But we finally coaxed her into the theater, where she played on Eloise's pink piano, surrounded by mirrors.

Before leaving  to walk home through Central Park (where she fell asleep in the stroller as soon as we started)  Amalia said good-bye to Eloise's portrait and opined that she might come back in December when Eloise will be hosting rawther fancy teas with Santa as a guest.