The View-- Christmas In NYC

Let me catch you up... I had a couple jobs in New York City last week with some time off in between them, so I decided as a surprise at the last minute that I would bring up Cole & Tessa to soak up some Christmas sights and get touristy with me during my time off over the weekend. It was my only chance to try and keep some of our family tradition intact of going to see the Radio City Christmas show. The biggest bummer in making this decision was that we could not bring The Littlest Buddy with us because it was not our weekend to be with him, and I would be in and out working a bunch and that isn't an ideal amount of consistency to keep him coping with a big change like a trip to the Big Apple :(

All I told Cole was, you're going to NYC next weekend with Tessa and we're doing a bunch of stuff... a bunch. So the whole trip was a surprise for them. And who loves to give surprises? This guy.

all images taken on iPhone 4s and processed through instagram

This was one of those weird trips that felt too good to be true, when something would go wrong, someone would come along and make things better. It was starting to get freaky towards the end, but it happened a bunch, stuff like-- when some cruel kid hating B sitting next to us huffed and puffed, griped and groaned, and built up so much tension around us at a show, I got up and spoke to the floor manager and we were moved to amazing seats that were a million times better than the ones I had paid for where we had to sit next to a kid hater. So thanks for that you mean ass lady wherever you are. Who gets mad at a kid for being excited at Mary Poppins?! You're at Mary Poppins you ding dong!!!!

Here's another example: On the morning that Cole and Tessa were flying in I wanted to get the room all ready so they could settle in and warm up and relax a little before we set out for the day. So when I arrived to check in, this is the news I receive. "Your room isn't finished being cleaned, but we did go ahead and upgrade you to a loft." Im sorry you did what?! I was so afraid that if I spoke they would either change their mind, say just kidding, or I would somehow screw it up. So I just backed away slowly and nodded. They did end up getting the room ready by the time Cole and Tessa arrived, so we got to go straight up.

So in all of the planning of sights and sounds, and shows and spectacle, it ended up being the windows in our room that stole the whole show, and of course it was the one thing I had nothing to do with. The two of them rushed into the room and let out these great "WOWS!!" and ran right up to the windows and climbed up onto the sills and fawned over the view. Tessa was out of her mind excited. It really made the whole trip, right there in that moment. She stood in the windows for at least an hour just pointing and asking questions, and laughing. "What's that daddy?" I think she set a record and asked this same question 592 times standing in that window. It was awesome.





The above photos are the only pictures I took the whole weekend on my 7D, I mainly used my iPhone, and boy did I feel like a tourist whipping that thing out and squinting at the back of it composing shots in the middle of the street and at shows. So if you follow along on Insatgram or my Tumblr I am sure you saw all the NYC photos pouring in from the trip. I thought by now I would be tired of using the phone as my main walk around camera, but I am showing no signs of slowing down. I really love the convenience of it too much.

One last story from the trip- It's not often that I sit around and pat myself on the back about shit that I do, if anything I am so self critical that I'm usually a punching bag. But... last year when we took the kids to see the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular starring the World Famous NYC Rockettes, I noticed and paid close attention to where Santa Claus came out into the crowd and makes his march up to the stage for the show. So this year, I bought seats where I remembered him walking out, and sure enough, after the first dance number when Santa arrives in the theater, the big spotlight shoots down right at our corner, and BAM! there is Santa Claus standing right there, and I grab Tessa and hold her up in the air, and Santa walked right over (like it was his job or something) and picked her up and hugged her tight and says to her "Ho-Ho-Ho, I love you so much." in a perfect jolly Santa Claus voice and Cole and I were going bonkers. I must have looked like crazy Will Ferrell in Elf when he starts screaming and flapping his hands for Santa at the Dept Store. "OH My GOD Tessa it's Santa! SANTA!!!!!!! It was amazing. So for the next 20 minutes of the show I don't even remember anything that happened, I was too busy beaming and thinking to myself: you're the greatest dad in the world, I mean the greatest. Of course that wore off quickly and I immediately went back to my trademark panicked and self critical state where I constantly beat myself up. But those 20 minutes felt nice.



In my little opinion, nobody does Christmas like New York City, it really feels great to be in that city this time of year, and I am so beyond lucky that I got the chance to do this again this year. It's so important to me that the kids can look back on their lives and see that they have been places beyond their own neighborhoods. I'm sure Tessa won't remember that at the age of two she stood in a window and marveled over the view and the noise laid out in front of her, but she will have these stories and images to look back on, and I hope they always give her great courage to face the world.

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