Mama/Daughter Day 'o Fun

Aaaaaahhh, it was almost a week ago already, but I had the very distinct pleasure of a mommy/daughter day with Miss Cindy in NYC! It was quite the full day, and oh-so-much fun. My mom and I have always had fun together, but I swear as time goes on, it gets even more fun. She's a riot, and usually up for just about anything...such as kissing a creepy Italian dude statue:

We did a LOT of walking around NYC. Luckily, my mama and I are both huge walkers. We love it. And could do it all day, until the cows come home. We started way down in the East Village and then eventually made our way up to Rockefeller Center (with stops along the way) for the Christmas tree lighting!

We tried to find as many other Christmas trees as we could along the route, including the Washington Square Park tree, seen in these pictures:

My last apartment in NYC was just a few blocks south of WSP, so during the Christmas season I would walk by the tree under the arch at every, single chance I got. Unfortunately, just the tree was up last week...no lights yet.

We did some shopping throughout the day (not surprising). We found this awesomely-named store on University Place, but were disappointed that it was just a pet accessories store. We thought, by the name, that it might be something else...
And before you go calling me gross, just know that mama bear is the one who pointed it out first! (But then I was the child who laughed about it for a good 10 minutes after)

We obviously had to hit up Macy's to see the be-yoo-ti-ful decorations:

And made some stranger (with a suspiciously Australian-sounding accent) take this picture for us:

His response when we asked him? "Oh, I must look trustworthy...you don't think I'm going to run away with your camera?" Response in my brain? "Check out my sweet running shoes. And I've run exactly one 5K. Don't even try it...obviously I would chase you down, catch you easily, and then tackle you/pull your hair." My actual response? "Oh, of course not, hahahaha."

We needed our energy to keep up with the walking and then outlast the crowds at Rockefeller Center. Nothing better for that than to carbo-load with a delicious NYC street pretzel!

So many gorgeous decorations to take in throughout the city...I particularly liked these new lights on 6th Avenue:

It looked like a string of lights from Godzilla's Christmas tree fell onto the street.

Eventually we made it up to the main event!

We got our sweet spot, and planted ourselves there for more than 5 hours in total. Good thing good company makes the time fly!

I barely took my camera out during the whole thing, since it was so nuts, I was sure I'd drop it and lose it in the massive and densely-packed crowd. BUT, I did have to take it out to capture this beauty that a 12 year old girl was holding right next to us:

Justin Bieber was in the line-up of performers, so there was an insane number of young, bouncy, screaming girls everywhere. I may have gotten a little bouncy and screamed myself a few times (come on...the Biebs....just too cute), but was mostly overwhelmed by their madness. I even had a little Bieber fan behind me, who couldn't have been more than 6 years old....but she had the left hook of a boxer. How do I know that, you ask? Because she punched me TWICE (once in the lower back and once in the arm) when I was blocking her view of Bieber. I was way too close to kicking her after that second punch, but I let the spirit of Christmas (and my age) win out, and let her be.

What an awesome experience, doing the tree lighting. It was my 3rd time doing it, and it never gets old. I didn't even get a picture with the tree amongst all the madness, so I got the next best thing...a picture by the subway stop sign:

All I want for Christmas is a super fun, holiday-spirited day with my sweet mama....oh, I already got it! Thank you for spending such a wonderful day with me, mama. You're the perfect partner for such a thing.

Okay, so now all I want for Christmas is a Kindle. Pre-loaded with the 3rd Hunger Games book.