Santaland at Macy's and The Rockefeller Christmas Tree

Today we went to Santaland at Macy's. Santaland is a portion of the 8th floor where you venture through a magical wonderland and get to meet the big man himself. My pictures don't really do it justice, but the kids loved it! Elliott was a little hesitant and reserved, except for looking at the trains and Lillie and Jack just enjoyed it all. The main reason for going to Santaland is, of course, to see Santa. The big moment at the Macy's Day Parade is when Santa closes out the parade and makes his grand seasonal appearance. At that moment Jack became very frustrated because he knew right away it was not the real Santa Claus. The real Santa comes out of the sky, not in a sleigh on a float. So, we went to check this one out. I don't know what his thoughts are about the "realness", but he liked it nonetheless. Jack's big thing he wants for Christmas this year is for our family to get Jet Packs, so we can all fly. He relayed the message on to Santa. From the look on Santa's face, my guess is that was a new one to him!

"Getting on" the train to the Northpole.

In one of the cars.

Entering the North Pole

They all loved the trains and I love this picture of Lillie and Elliott.

This reminded Freddy T. of the train station in New Brunswick, NJ (where I lived for a year and where Freddy T. joined me for a few months after we got married) and George Street that is kind of the main stretch of road in downtown New Brunswick.

This is our first ever picture with Santa Claus and all the kids.

You get to visit Santa Clause in his own little house. When you leave you are directed to the exit. If you look back you'll see about 5 or 6 other houses. There is a Santa in each one! They work hard to make sure the kids go the right way so they don't discover there is more than one!

Afterwards we went down to the 7th floor to eat at McDonald's and then off to Rockefeller Center to get our annual family picture at the Christmas Tree. I'm way ahead of the game this year. Last year it was the night before we were leaving for TN, when I hauled the kids down there to meet Freddy T. and it was a blizzard out there.

This one won't go down in the books as the best picture ever taken. The man who took it for us got more of the pavement in the picture and didn't even get the whole tree, you can't see the top, and you can barely make out that it's even our family, but oh well... here you go!

Jack has to wear one of my jackets until his arm is out of the sling. He has been such a sport.

Freddy T. had to make a big deal of the ornaments and get Jack to tell me about them in order to get him to look at the camera.

This was our first trip during the day. It was easier, but the tree is much prettier at night. You can barely tell there are lights on it here.

There are Elmo's and Cookie Monsters floating around during the holidays offering to take their picture with your kids. You take a picture then they pull out their bag for money. It's worth a dollar or two, especially this year when Elliott is pretty fond of Elmo and his Sesame Street Pals.