Christmas Day!!!

Waking up in the Plaza Hotel on Christmas morning was so so special, and made Christmas morning even more exciting! The big comfy beds gave us a great nights sleep, so we woke up ready for a fancy breakfast downstairs before opening our presents.

The breakfast was rather lovely, with lots of things to choose from - I went for the eggs benedict, which I have to say were probably the tastiest eggs benedict in all of New York, if not the world, and I've had a fair few eggs benedict in the last couple of years in New York. They were delicious!

After breakfast we went back to Mops and Pops's room for a prezzie opening session...

Even being on across the pond, Father Christmas was able to find us all in the hotel! What a clever man he is.

We all had lots of lovely presents, and it was great to be able to talk to Beth on the phone too, so we were all together for a few minutes on Christmas Day. Then it was time to ablute and go for a Christmas Day walk in Central Park...

 It was a beautifully sunny morning, and although the park was quite busy, it still felt lovely and quiet and peaceful. We walked all around, over to the ice skating rink, where hundreds of people were standing watching, waiting for the rink to be open for their Christmas Day skating...

... and round to the boating lake and Boathouse...

It was such a lovely walk, working up an appetite for our Plaza lunch. But before we could eat again, a certain Christmas Elf had a little photo shoot booked in the park...

 

Tom very bravely stripped down to his little yellow tights and donned his elf hat for a Central Park Christmas Day photo... and then quickly got dressed again before the Park rangers had a chance to lock him up!

Then it was time for a spot of Christmas lunch in the Palm Court...

The menu was really nicely broken down into three sections, to begin, to savour, to indulge... and we did all three! 

Mops had the gravlax to start, Tom had the chowder and Pops and I had the delicious cauliflower strudel (much nicer, and less cauliflowery than it sounds!). 

Then Tom and I had the duck cassoulet, Mops had the beef and Pops had the Snapper. There may not have been any turkey on the menu, but it was all mighty tasty. 

Then for pudding, there was a whole island in the middle of the room, full with lots of different treats, constantly being topped up by the pudding chefs...

It was all incredible and a very special Christmas treat!

Then, as with any Christmas afternoon, it was time for a nap. So we went back upstairs for a wee bit, flicked through the channels on the telly and found Home Alone 2! So we were watching Home Alone 2 on Christmas Day, in the Home Alone 2 hotel...

It was so funny seeing the Plaza in the film, and seeing all the bits of Central Park that we'd been walking around that morning... what a coincidence!

Next to the Plaza is the Paris Cinema, a little arty cinema that shows films like the Showroom cinema in Sheffield, or the Hyde Park cinema in Leeds. They were showing the Artist, which had been getting very good reviews, so we all went to see it on Christmas Evening...

It was a great film, a clever idea doing a modern silent film, but made to feel like an old 1920's film... it was really lovely, and a full house too, lots of people must have had the same idea. But I bet not everyone was able to just walk across the road to their hotel room after the film finished.

The hotel looked beautiful at night, with the twinkly tree lights on the road that runs down the side of the hotel, and the hotel entrance...

It was such a very special Christmas Day, it felt really magical being in New York for it, and even more magical staying in the Plaza Hotel on Christmas Eve and waking up there on Christmas morning.

Tom and I went back to Brooklyn that night feeling very happy and incredibly excited about what was coming the next morning...