Kayla Mahon

I had always dreamt of traveling to New York City during Christmas time, when all the beautiful decorations were scattered all over the city. As soon as I got out of the cab at Grand Central Station I could feel the Christmas spirit in the air. As I walked into Grand Central and saw the garnish hanging over the marvellous staircases I couldn’t help but picture all of the famous Hollywood movies that had taken place there. We walked around the city for a while, taking in the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree and the windows of Saks 5th Ave. In the afternoon we headed over the Brooklyn bridge to the apartment we rented for our trip. 

On our first trip over to New York last summer we hadn’t experienced Brooklyn so we spent the first night eating delicious veggie burgers and salad at Trix restaurant and ended the night with some live music at Skinny D’s. 

The next day we went to the New York Public Library as it is my favourite place in Manhattan. There is free entry and you can spend as much time here marvelling at the incredible detail as you’d like. It was extra special seeing the library decorated with lights and a Christmas tree that lit up the entire front entrance hall. We also found the brownstone in West Village where Sex and the City filmed Carrie Bradshaw's apartment and the famous building from the show Friends. 

The remainder of the time we spent wandering the city exploring new areas and eating everything that we could. In Greenwich there was a great Mexican restaurant called Caliente Cab that had amazing buffalo cauliflower tacos. 

On our last day we walked through Williamsburg again and stopped at the Big Whiskey restaurant which had the best vegan sandwich I have ever tried. It was a whiskey rib vegan sandwich covered with BBQ sauce and vegetables. They had many other vegetarian and vegan options such as any burger replaced with a veggie burger, deep fried pickles (one of my favourite snacks of all time), mozzarella sticks and seitan strips. I would highly recommend this place! 

Christmas in New York was everything I hoped for and more and it is an experience everyone should have!

Seek adventure and explore - Kayla