As you know, if you read this blog regularly that I am obsessed with traditions. One of my favorite Holiday traditions is visiting Santa Claus at Macy’s Santaland. See, we don’t drive into Manhattan a lot and even less during the Holidays because with little kids, cold, tourist, and short days it can be chaotic. So visiting Macy’s at 34th St is always pretty special, not only for the kids but also for us. I wanted to share our experience since many mama friends have been asking me how it was.
I have to say I have never in 5 years had a bad experience when visiting Santaland. We always go Christmas week since we depend on husband schedule. We also go during the week because is much easier to navigate in the city. This year we changed things up a bit by going this week. It was soooooo nice and pleasant. If you are driving, I recommend parking in a garage, because looking for parking is a bit insane, unless you are willing to walk A LOT of blocks. Mind you garage will run you about $40 on average.
We arrived in the city about 4 pm and went straight upstairs. Always find the elevator attendant, as she will make sure you don’t wait long for an elevator. The 8th floor is where Santa lives. The first thing you’ll see if windows with the Miracle on 34th St scenes. There is also a marquee that tells you the hours and also the waiting time.
We waited 15 minutes to see Santa. 15 minutes!! That’s really nothing. Of course my boys loved the train engine and going through train carts. And of course you doesn’t like trains? There is a huge train display. I was actually kind of sad on how quickly the line moved since it didn’t give me a lot of time to take pictures.
We reached Santa and he was so nice. He asked the boys what they wanted for Christmas and then we did pictures. I was a bit disappointed that the elf refused to take pictures with our camera since they had never refused in the past. I do like that they don’t rush you, so if you go on a slow night, like the one I went, you can spend some nice time with Santa. On the way out each kid received a pin and then we were directed to the picture area.
The pictures are NOT cheap. You can get framed pictures, digital or even in key chains. We got 4 printed pictures in their mats with the downloads for $60. This is an increase since last year so it did hurt me a bit to pay for them. But Santaland is really our tradition.
Of course, there are two other things we had to do while at Macy’s. The first one is write our letter to Santa. Especially because each letter sent to Santa is a donation to a very special charity in my life the Make-A-Wish Foundation. MAKE SURE YOU VISIT YOUR MACY’S AND SEND OUT YOUR LETTERS! If you don’t have a Macy’s around you, you can do a virtual letter to Santa. The second thing we did was look at the windows. This year the theme was planets. They had basically the story of a boy with Santa visiting different planets. I loved all of them. It was very special.
All in all we were in the City a total of 3 hours! This is counting traffic, parking and everything we did. If you live in NYC, you know this is actually not bad at all. So definitely go and visit Santaland. It is fun, special, and the kids really enjoy it. Do you have any Santa traditions in your family?
