Wednesday, December 26, 2007

MERRY CHRISTMAS

We celebrated Christmas this year NYC style! We are blessed to live here & the Christmas season was filled with excitement in the city. Every morning for the past few weeks I have been greeted at the World Trade Center by the Salvation Army bell ringers - these 2 were not your average bell ringers - they had a jambox with Christmas music blarring! It put a smile on my face everytime. What joy they bring to the people of New York. Its great how the simplest of things can make your day :)

Dick & Diana spent Christmas with us again this year and I think we wore them out! There is just so much to do around here - and so little time to do all of it. Below is a slide show if our adventures. I will try my best to give you the play-by-play....

Thursday, December 20:
Dick & Diana arrive & we cooked dinner at home. The menu was a mix of favorites! Pecan Chicken (my mom's recipe) & Potatoe Casserole (Diana's recipe). Yum Yum! Who doesn't love home cooking!

Friday, December 21:
We slept in & then took the train into the World Trade Center to see the memorial & the construction site. It really is still moving to see all of it, even though I see it almost everyday. From there we made our first Subway trip to Time Square. We took some pictures & then worked our way up to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas Tree & all the lights! Its was perfect! Dinner reservations were at 5:30pm so we had to move quickly to Virgil's BBQ on 44th Street. We had a very filling dinner! The BBQ was great - even though its not Texas. Then we headed to the THEATER! Dick & Diana's request was Les Miserables & it was amazing! I tried to hold back from belting out all the songs - I am a Clark what can I say :)

Saturday, December 22:
Down the shore.....We made a short trip to the New Jersey Shore for shopping & site seeing during the day. Then we prepared for Saturday Night Football & THE COWBOYS! Our only mistake was picking the Palisades Mall as our venue - parking was a nightmare. FOX Sports Grill was nice though.

Sunday, December 23:
Christmas Day in the Farrell house! I put a brisket on late Saturday so Sunday afternoon we could enjoy another meal at home....Chris is going to think something happened to me....all this cooking! Anyway, it was pouring rain outside so we thought we would take advantage of a lazy day inside to open gifts & take a nap. It was a blast as always! Diana & I also appreciated the fact that we looked nice for the Christmas morning pictures - as opposed to that just rolled out of bed look we typically have. Later that day we took in a movie at the local AMC - "I AM LEGEND" was Chris' pick. I think we all enjoyed it!

Monday, December 24:
Christmas Eve. This was our second trip to the city for some shopping! We made it to the NBA store, Trump Tower, FAO Schwartz & The American Girl. It was a busy day & we had to be back in Hawthorne by 4pm for a 5pm Christmas Eve service at church. We cleaned up & made it on time. Chris participated in the service & I know Dick & Diana really enjoyed seeing the church, meeting the people & singing the carols. After all HE is the reason for the season!!!

Tuesday, December 25:
Back to NYC for more fun....Our lunch reservation was for 12:30pm at Bryant Park Grill. We decided that traffic would be light enough to make the drive in instead of using public transportation. We arrived early & sat in the park calling family members to wish them all a Merry Christmas! We were seated early in the Holiday Room - it was beautiful! I think we all had a great meal & of course great family fellowship. We even toasted to the coming year! The afternoon was our chance to catch the last few tourist attractions so we took the Subway from Bryant Park to Wall Street. On Wall Street we saw the NYSE, Federal Hall & my office building (the highlight :)). From there we walked to the Staten Island Ferry & rode across to see the Statue of Liberty - still an amazing sight! Afterwards we made our way back uptown to Central Park for a stroll before we came home.

Today we took Dick & Diana around to our stomping grounds Ridgewood, Ramsey & Wyckoff. We had breakfast at the Daily Treat & shopped a little along the way. Then we rounded things up and made the trip back to the airport to see Dick & Diana off & back to Texas.




We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

3 comments:

leslie said...

I'm so glad you found our blog and sent me an email! I have enjoyed catching up and reading yours. I had no idea you were in Jersey!! How much fun!! I would LOVE to come visit sometime. Let me know if you know of way to get halfway decent airfare! Looks like ya'll are doing great. Keep in touch!

Jennifer K said...

Looks like y'all were very busy Christmas! I am glad y'all are having fun. Miss you.

Cara said...

I'm so glad you found me! I loved catching up with you. As you can see from our blog we've been busy. But we're loving it. We'll talk soon!