Every year, my family decides to take a trip to New York right before Christmas time. We love to look at the lights and get into the Christmas spirit!

But this year, things did not go as planned... 

Our first bump in the road was not everyone in my family could make it on the trip. My dad was busy at work. This year it was me, my twin sister, Abby, my older sister, Gracie, my friend Ella, and my Mom. 

Me          Abby         Gracie         Ella             My Mom

Our second problem was Christmas was already over. 

Usually, we plan our trip to make it to NYC before Christmas, but this year we forgot, and we went on December 30th, the day before New Year's Eve, one of the busiest times in NYC. But we decided we would go and pretend it was Christmas. 

For our trip, we planned to leave around 1 pm...

We left at 2 pm. 

Most trips with my family usually never begin on time. But still, it always stresses me out. 

When we finally got in the car to leave. 

We had yet another problem.....

My sister had recently gotten a new phone for Christmas and had yet to put a case on it. 

"You can not walk around New York City without a case on your phone!" My mom yelled.

"It will be fine!" my sister yelled back.

This bickering continued until my mom eventually gave in, but it put us even farther behind schedule. 

Once the fighting was over, we were back in the car and on our way to New York. 

We decided it would be easiest to take the train into New York from Secaucus Junction Station, or so we thought. 

About an hour of driving and singing Taylor Swift later, we arrived at the train station. 

Everything was going to plan so far, we had our tickets, and after a few minutes of trying to find the right track, we made it on time. 

After taking selfies with the city skyline at the train station, we got on the train, but there was another issue. 

There were no seats left. 

My mom, sisters, Ella, and I had to stand between the two train cars with a handful of other strangers. 

We held on to each other for dear life as the wind quickly increased as the train headed to NYC.

My mom made friends with some strange man that was standing near her. He told her how he loves to come to New York and about his daughters that love Harry Styles, which we all did too!

A few minutes later, the tornado simulator of a train arrived in New York City. We said goodbye to our strange man friend and started out to the streets of New York. 

We didn’t have much of a structured schedule when we arrived, but we had somewhat of an outline of a plan. We planned to go to at least the Lego store and Ellen’s Stardust Diner.

As we left the train station and headed to the Lego store, my mom decided to make a quick stop.  

" Oh My Gosh! Look at the windows in Macy's! We have to go in!" She squealed, pointing at the festive windows of Macy's decorated with animatronic reindeer, snow globes, and all things Christmas.

As the day continued with themes of detours and delays, my sisters decided they wanted to stop for Starbucks in the Macys. The line for Starbucks was nearly a mile long. 

“We don’t have time for this!” I exclaimed. It was already 4:30, and we still had a long walk to the Lego store.

“We will have time.” My older sister tried to assure me.  

We waited in line for 10 minutes until my patience began nearing its end. I started to get anxious that things were not going to plan. 

“If we want to make it to the lego store and the diner in time, we have to leave now,” I explained. After a few moments of complaining, my family gave in, and we left the Starbucks line.

We exited the large store and stood outside momentarily trying to find directions to the Lego Store. When I looked it up on my phone, it said “10-minute walk”. Perfect. I thought to myself. I gathered my family and Ella and sought the direction of the Lego store until we had another delay. My sister saw Sephora right across the street and demanded we go in. I groaned but complied as I did not want to make the trip miserable for everyone with my nagging.