Rockin’ Around the Rockefeller Tree

The city at Christmas time is so festive.  There's no better way to get in the Christmas spirit than to visit the Christmas tree in Rockefeller center. With all the ice skater skating around and the amazing view of the tree, it’s one of my favorite things to do around the holiday season. 

Today, I was the perfect day to go into the city because it wasn't too cold. I decided to wear my festive green top from Free People and my black jeans, with the most comfortable jacket (similar) I’ve ever had.  My boyfriend, his sisters and I went in the city, making the Rockefeller tree our top priority.

Fun fact: This year, the Rockefeller tree is from Penn State. 

We started off at Macy's in Herald Square. Macy's, this time of the year, is super festive and very crowded. My favorite part of the entire store is right when you walk in and see the wreaths and the big snow globe in the middle, along with the strings of lights coming from the decorations. There's also a cute little place right above the first level, where you can sit in "Santas workshop" and have a nice Starbucks drink and watch people walk around the bottom floor. 

After Macy's, we walked into Time Square on our way to Bryant Park. The people dressed up as characters still creep me out and are super annoying, but it wasn’t as crowded as I thought it would be for the weekend on Christmas. We took some pictures in the center of Time Square before going to Bryant Park.

We headed to Bryant Park for the Christmas market and the tree. The Christmas market is super adorable place to find gifts for people. I love shopping at the little huts that are built, where there's jewelry, scarves, hats, ornaments and so many other things that people made. As we made our way through the market, I got a bracelet and a matching necklace for someone (who may be reading this). We took pictures by the tree after getting through the market, which looked so beautiful behind all the skaters. I personally like this tree better in the day, rather than at night, because you can see the tree more clearly and it looks better in pictures (of course). The best place to go for pictures in Bryant Park is in front of the fountain just as you enter the park. That way, you can get the fountain with the tree and the buildings in the background, which looks amazing. I also like the Bryant Park tree because it’s much less crowded and you are able to take pictures super close to it without getting other people in the photo. (I’m not a huge fan of photo bombers!) We took a bunch of pictures around that area, then decided to make our way to the next place, Rockefeller center.

For a late lunch, we took the subway from Bryant Park to a restaurant in Little Italy called Paesanos of Mulberry Street. I had never been to the restaurant before, so I thought it was adorable. They had amazing holiday decorations hanging from the ceiling. While I was there, I got the penne vodka pasta and it was amazing. 

On our way to the big tree at Rockefeller center, we took some pit stops along radio city to get the classic ornament fountain picture. The ornaments are only up around Christmas time, so mine as well get as many pictures in front of it as possible! After we finished lunch, we took the subway back to Bryant Park and walked up to Rockefeller center. 

When we finally arrived at Rockefeller Center, it was dark. The tree was lit up and you could see the star getting brighter and brighter. To say that it was crowded was an understatement, but we managed to squeeze our way through the crowd to get close enough to the tree where you could get a good picture out of it. One thing that I thought was really cool was there were people outside that offered to take pictures of others for free. That's so nice because then people don't have to be stuck with just taking selfies! There were also a lot of ice skaters below the tree, which is something that everyone should do during the holidays (if they know how to ice skate). It was so fun watching them skate around!