Little Man, Big Apple.

My Little Man and I spent the weekend in NYC for a whirlwind trip which will forever be known as the "Christmas extravaganza of 2010." We hit almost every tourist trap that the city had to offer, and I'm pretty sure my little guy had the best time of his life. Here are some of the highlights ...

The first stop was, of course, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Once we were able to make it through the massive crowds, we took our spot in front of the iconic tree.

After a quick "stroller nap" while Mom ooohhheddd and ahhhheeddd at the windows on 5th Avenure, we hit up my man's dream destination, Dylan's candy bar. Yes, it was impressive. Yes, it was PACKED.  Yes, we left with enough candy to feed a small army. (Or in this case a toddler and his pregnant Mommy.)

After our sugar high, we headed over to the Disney store in Times Square. After 2 hours, my little man was beat, and we were able to sneak in  some dinner at Mom's favorite place, and we were very happy to be back in the West Village, away from the crowds, to crash at my SIL's house. 

Not surprisingly, my Little Man was up at 5am because he knew what the day had in store. Yes, were meeting Santa. You see, the point of the trip was to get up early on Sunday morning, to head over to Macy's to see the real Miracle on 34th street. As expected it did not disappoint. We got there about 15 minutes before the store opened and after following a veteran dad (love those!) we learned that Santa was housed on the 8th floor. The doors opened, and after a made rush we soon found ourselves smack in the middle of Santa's Village. 

To get to the village, you had to take a ride on the polar express. 

To get onto the polar express you had to wait....

  

and wait....

and wait some more....

After about 30 minutes we finally made our way inside the train.

Which absolutely was worth the wait. 

After a little more waiting, we were let into a room to meet the big man. (Word is that there was about 19 Santa's in that hall, shhhhhhhh.) One look at that big red suit and my Little Man froze. Froze as in refused to enter the room. As in, we drove 4 hours, left our house at the crack of dawn, waited in line for an hour, just to see this "man," and now my little man is refusing to get off the ground, kind of froze... 

No, way, that was not going to happen. 

After I agreed to sit in the middle, my shy little guy finally got to meet dream celebrity.

 It was slow going in the beginning....

But after a couple of minutes he finally warmed up to his new favorite person.

I learned that all he wants for Christmas is a green dinosaur and since this is news to me, I'm really hoping Santa got the message.... looks like "someone" has a little more shopping to do. 

All in all we had a short, but fabulous time. It has been a dream of mine, since I was a little kid, to see New York during Christmastime, and I am so glad that I finally was able to do it, watching it all through the eyes of my favorite little guy. 

36 hours of Christmas fun... now it's time to settle in for a LONG winter's nap.