December | 2021 | THE CAVENDER DIARY

Yes, I realize that Christmas was a couple months ago at this point,

But I really wanted to share our trip, and the handful of the quintessential New York touristy things we did;

Like visiting the top of the Empire State Building.

There are actually 3 different observation decks on the top of the Empire State Building, and we hit them all.

Each smaller,

higher,

and slightly more fear-inducing than the last.

I believe you can see the Archer hotel – where we stayed a few years ago on our last New York trip – just over Jamie’s right shoulder seam.

Spent a day slowly wandering around the Museum of Modern Art.

Skip the Met Folks, this is where it’s at.

Wyeth, Picasso, Monet, Frieda, Polock, T.C. Cannon, Hopper, Warhol;

I honestly didn’t know that Van Gogh’s Stary Night was there…. I just turned a corner and there it was.

I think it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in person.

A close second place would be the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

It wouldn’t be Christmas in Manhattan without the department store windows, this is what I do for a living after all, and the Holiday windows at Bergdorf Goodman never disappoint.

Since we each pick a couple activities whenever we travel, and Jamie has always wanted to take a helicopter tour of the city, we booked a tour with Manhattan Helicopters.

It was a hazy morning when we started, and we could just make out the outline of the Empire State Building through the fog. But all this burned off nicely as we rounded the Statue of Liberty and the lowest part of downtown.

If you ever have the chance, I highly recommend it. The entire tour lasted about 15-20 minutes but we both agreed that it was definitely worth the money. Be sure to book it in advance though.

Now it was my turn.

I’ve always wanted to go skating in Rockefeller Center and we’ve never had a chance before because the limited amount of tickets sell out pretty quickly.

Not this time, we bought our tickets in November.

Turns out that neither of us is a very good skater.

But that’s not the point of skating in Rockefeller Center, now is it?

Even though it was bitter cold – for a couple Texans – we wandered through Central Park and ate various crap off of food carts.

Not everything we ate was off a sketchy food cart, we had Christmas Eve diner at the Polo Bar.

I have better manners than to shoot off a bunch of random pics in a restaurant, but it was pretty exciting and I did manage to get a few stealthy pictures.

Like the heat-stamped ice cube in my cocktail. (Notice the polo mallet stir stick too)

And the chocolate pudding cake we shared for dessert.

It was a short trip, and over much too soon, but one we won’t soon forget either.

It just wouldn’t feel like Christmas without a house tour.

Even if we’re not home this year, we still wanted to open our home.

I found a set of these red Noma bells at an estate sale a while back and knew immediately what I’d do with them. Four more sets and a box of “blinkers” later and I swear our front door has never looked so festive.

The big tree this year is entirely American unsilvered glass World War 2 era ornaments.

When silver nitrate – used to make ornaments reflective – was deemed unnecessary during the war, the ornament designers countered with hand-painted details and colors that look like stained glass…. especially when the sunlight shines through them.

If you look closely, you’ll notice that some of them even have pieces of tinsel inside and a few have paper caps and hangers – those are the absolute rarest.

On the mantle is my ever-growing collection of plastic Santas.

Made by companies like Union, Miller, Empire, Rosen and Rosbro. Most of these are dime store candy containers.

One of them is even a baby rattle.

My Rosbro snowmen candy containers have been moved to the coffee table with a vase of Kentlee glass candy canes.

There’s a smaller tree filled with quite a few early Corning-made ornaments. These were designed by the Stuben glass division of Corning. The designers looked for inspiration from German imports, but their deco shapes were more streamlined and decidedly American looking.