Holiday Season NYC, Part 4 - Santas!

The Little Lady is 5. Surprisingly, she really does not care all that much about Santa Claus. She knows who he is, of course, but it's not like she was just dying to meet him this year. But we are in New York, and I would have been surprised if some of the best Santas cannot be found here. I mean it seems like there is this little under-the-radar movie about a little girl and the Macy's down on 34th Street. So it would have been just a little wrong not to check out some of the options, right? We did. And we found the real Santa Claus.

So as not to bury the lede, he can be found at ABC Carpet and Home near Union Square. If you poke around at all on the web, you'll see several lists of the best Santas in NYC. Dozens of these lists exist. No joke. I guess it should not come as a surprise. After all, I was searching for just such a list so that we could visit one or two of the best this season. TimeOut had a good list as well as several blogs oriented around kids like Mommypoppins. ABC Home is consistently listed as one of the best. He's only there on weekends, and the line is not for the faint of heart. So we braved the cold and headed out one Sunday.

Tell me this is not actually jolly old St. Nick:

I absolutely love the vintage costume. That beard is completely legit. And his demeanor was perfect. Friendly but not overly familiar. Placed in front of lovely decor. They handed out insanely large lollipops to the kids. And in a great home store to boot. After seeing Santa we even had brunch in one of the two restaurants attached to the ABC Store. The whole experience was worth the hour-long wait. We followed the advice of one of the blogs and got some hot chocolate from City Bakery to warm us while we waited.

If you are ever in New York during the holidays, I highly recommend the Santa at ABC. Make a half-day of it. Get there at least 30 minutes (an hour would be better) before they open, checking their website for the current year's hours (note this link is for 2017 and you'll need to search for an update). You'll bump in to nice people to pass the time in line with good conversation. This is not really a tourist thing. Most of the folks were from New York. Enjoy Santa then have lunch at ABC Cocina or ABC Kitchen. And browse the several floors of home decor in the store. They have furniture, classic and modern. They have candles, art, rugs, lighting, bedding, toys (a really nicely curated selection, actually), and really anything for your home. It's a great place to spend an hour or two.

And, see, I'm not joking about the lollipop:

We did not stop with the ABC Santa. Since Bloomingdale's is just a few blocks from our place, we actually visited Bloomingdale's first. We went there the weekend after Thanksgiving. It as a nice, laid-back experience. The Santa there is perfectly good, with a crisp costume, real beard, and plenty of holiday spirit. However, the Little Lady said he spoke a little too softly. That's better than the alternative, I'd say. It's not fancy. And the line was not long at all when we visited. (Lines may be longer later in the season, but I don't think they are ever too long.) They have a nice kids section nearby the Santa for some browsing after you're done. Here are a couple pictures:

  

We also stopped by Macy's but did not want to go through the hassle of reserving a slot to visit Santa ahead of time, so we skipped that. But the Santa Land there does look amazing. But it is swamped with people and is not my idea of fun. We also visited the Plaza Santa the evening we went there for tea and waited for a while in line to see the Santa. The line was slow and completely unorganized. So we decided to just skip it - the Little Lady actually suggested that there was no reason to wait in line to see yet another Santa. But I do think John Oliver was taking his kids to this Santa, as he was arriving just as we were leaving. So take from that whatever you want.

All in all, the Santa scene in New York is unsurprisingly world class. They even have a Santa convention here for goodness sake. I feel pretty comfortable concluding that we found the best of the best at ABC Home.