Pillow fight in Washington Square Park! 7000 random people attacking each other with pillows. Only in NYC!

New Years Eve. After a great dinner with a couple of friends and family at Phil’s we went with Al, Meg, Dan, Phil and Nicole to go watch the new Tintin movie. The theatre has these huge la-z-boy chairs for each seat which folds out into what essentially equates to a bed that is so comfortable that the guys on my left fell asleep for half the movie. After the film Erin’s stomach somehow got us into a Denny’s diner sometime after 11pm. A waitress welcomed us at the door of the diner-slash-bar wearing a cheery cardboard glitter tiara with “2012” emblazoned on it and invited us in to “see the new year in at Denny’s!” Time stood still as we all looked at each other and mutually resolved, without any need to say anything at all, that this is not the way it was meant to be.

All things accounted for and fed, we managed to get out with 15 minutes to spare and ended up seeing a couple of fireworks going off over the sound as we crossed over the Narrows bridge while simultaneously crossing over into the new year. Sheer poetry.

Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve with the Jonses and the Marshalls

Wrapping Christmas presents and posting them back home.

A gingerbread house!

Some subway Christmas cheer.

A couple of cool store fronts along Broadway turning on the holiday cheer.

The usual meeting venue for Apostles was being used so we met in St George’s other cathedral up on Park & 21st for one of our Advent services. It’s a really old, really pretty space. Eric arranged a great string section for a really nice sounding set.

There are a lot of these pavement Christmas tree markets all over the place. Adds to a nice holiday vibe in the city.