It’s been a few years since I took a trip to New York City and wrote about it. But in December 2025, we did a family Christmas vacation with the whole gang.
Return to the Big Apple
Maybe it’s cliché, and maybe I’ve visited and written about it too many times, but NYC will always be my Emerald City. It calls back to me all the time, and every time I see it through new eyes. New York is a place that constantly changes. And at the same time, it changes me every time I visit.
The last few times I’ve gone, it’s just been my mom and me playing tourist with our cousins guiding us. But this time, we navigated on our own with my dad, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew.
Navigating the City
Now that I’ve been to New York City a few times, I felt like a true veteran of the public transportation system. My family entrusted me to help them navigate the subways, buses, and taxis.
It took me a moment to get my legs back under me now that it was up to me to guide us without my cousins’ expertise. But I think I did a pretty good job for a Florida girl. I even rode the subway back to our hotel all by myself one night!
Empire State Building
Although I’ve visited New York City several times, this was my first time going into the Empire State Building. We had quite the adventure getting there, as we planned to do a sunset viewing right off the plane. But that didn’t work out because our flight kept getting delayed, so I had to keep pushing back our reservation.
Eventually, we made it to our hotel and began the walk to the Empire State Building in the cold of New York’s winter. That building holds so much history, telling the story of the city’s beginnings, evolution, and the role it plays in film as its own character. We didn’t stop to see much, as we wanted to make sure to get to the 86th-floor observation deck. But that just means I’ll have to come back once more to take it all in.
Natural History Museum
This was another first for me, as all the times I’ve been here, I had never gone to the Natural History Museum. I always wanted to have my Night at the Museum moment, and I finally saw the splendor of this location.
With what feels like an endless number of halls, the museum holds so many exhibits it’s impossible to get through even in one day. It would take an entire week to truly appreciate every display and room this place has. From what we saw, I loved the interactive geology exhibit where you could jump on a designated spot to see how seismic waves work.
Ground Zero and Statue of Liberty
I visited Ground Zero before with just my mom, but this time we returned with the whole family. The last time my mom, dad, brother, and I had been all together in this area was in 2000. At that time, the Twin Towers still stood, and we’d gone to the top. It blew my mind in that moment that 25 years had already passed.
We also returned to the Statue of Liberty, but this time, I was the adult. I realized my nephew was experiencing it all just a couple of years younger than I was my first time. Returning to these familiar sights with our parents older, my brother and I grown up now, and with a kid in our family, it all felt so full circle.
Dreaming of a White Christmas
There hadn’t been a high probability of snow for the time we visited, but we ended up getting a White Christmas after all. Snow began to fall on our second or third evening there, and my nephew couldn’t have been more excited.
Watching his childlike wonder as the flakes fell, I remembered my first experience seeing snow when we arrived in New York in 2000 during a snowstorm. I could see in him the same magic that took hold of me and has never let me go since my first time in the greatest city in the world.