Many of our Christmas memories are of New York City, where tourists flock for the holidays. Santa Claus makes his annual appearance at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade every November to usher in the holiday season which is a boon for shoppers and watched by millions on television. Each day leading up to Christmas, you can also visit Macy’s Santaland, a winter wonderland, where at the end of Thirty-fourth Street on Sixth Avenue you get to take a Santa picture, while telling him what you want for Christmas. People like to peek at all the decorated Macy’s windows, too!

We love Rockefeller Center’s lights, excitement, and glitter at Christmas time, as well as seeing the annual display of angels glowing on Fifth Avenue. The huge Christmas tree, up to 100 ft (30m), is the star of the show with its thousands of colored lights. It’s worth getting through the throng of people to see these spectacular sights! Just a gaze at the tree, and ice skaters can make you cry with emotional memories! The smell of freshly roasted chestnuts fills the air. Toys of all kinds are being sold. FAO Schwarz is a popular toy store which is full of shoppers at Christmas. We also recommend going up to the viewing deck of Top of the Rock to see the lights of the whole city! We made a YouTube video doing this in the Jason Rupp Don’t Miss the Plane YouTube channel.

Fifth Avenue is celebrating its 200th anniversary. A 30-foot, gigantic snowflake decoration floats high above the famed avenue twinkling with its 16,500 individual crystal prisms. All along Fifth Avenue in New York City are stores with their windows featuring Christmas displays. Then at the bottom of Fifth Avenue is Washington Square Park, which has its own decorated Christmas tree, right in front of the famous Arch dedicated to George Washington. If you peek through the arches you see the Empire State Building. Whilst here you should explore the little shops and cafes around this West Village area, especially Caffe Reggio, the first American coffee house to serve Italian cappuccino. This historic hangout on MacDougal Street opened in 1927, and we have many memories of having a cannoli with an Americano.

One year we walked together up Sixth Avenue towards Radio City Music Hall and Jason made a YouTube video for his Jason Rupp Learning to Walk and Talk channel at Christmas. Radio City Music Hall hosts the biggest and greatest Christmas show, which includes the famous Rockette dancers. They kick so high -all at the same time! We’ll never forget the experience of meeting a Rockette dancer once during a Christmas tour of Radio City Music Hall and hearing how hard they work to make such a great show.

We think the Bryant Park Winter Village on 42nd Street is the best place to take your family or loved ones. This Christmas-themed market is full of little stalls selling all kinds of foods, crafts and gift items. We love getting hot chocolate and sitting on a park bench, watching ice skaters holding hands to the sounds of holiday music. You skate free here; you just pay for skate rental. It’s more expensive to skate at Rockefeller Center or in Central Park, but those spots are fun as well. We have skating memories all over the city!

Broadway shows are a big thing during the Christmas season and we enjoy walking through the Theater District, perhaps during or after a show. We sit on the public bleachers at Broadway and 48th Street and look at all the people from all over the world, the neon signs and the craziness of Times Square. Other New York City memories include finding the awesome indoor Christmas tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and taking a Christmas season trip to the extravagant model train exhibit at the New York Botanical Gardens, reachable by express train from Grand Central Station (which also has a holiday crafts show worth browsing).

Wherever you are and whatever you do, we wish you peace, love, health and happiness. Don’t forget the love at the holidays! This is the Jason Rupp tagline at the end of all of the YouTube videos he creates, with Carla and Jason as co-producers. Jason Rupp and Carla Marie Rupp are freelance travel journalists who enjoy writing about their travel experiences. They welcome story tips at their emails at [email protected] and [email protected]. They like sharing their travels for Discover Pattaya – Pattaya Trader readers.