Disney at Christmas Time


 



Not sure if my name is supposed to be on naughty or nice list, its kind of misleading.



Santa, then Mrs. Claus. Ava liked the Mrs. better.

California Adventure tree.

Alana loves her some Santa.

Santa left his sleigh here for us to take a picture in. How nice of him.

Second Santa. Hope no one was suspicious that he clearly looked different.

One of the reasons that we wanted to go to Disneyland in December this year, even though we just went in February, was that we wanted to see the Christmas decorations. And Santa. Twice. They did not disappoint, especially at night. Main street and its giant tree, Its a Small World, and the awesome parade were all really cool. And the girls loved seeing Santa, both in Disneyland with his reindeer, and in California Adventure without.

The parade was the coolest Christmas aspect by far, even if we had to wait forever to save our spot to watch it. The start time was 5:30, but when we came out onto Main Street 3 hours before it started there were already people lining up and saving benches to watch it. Crazy! I don't mind if there's an actual person waiting, but some people were just putting blankets on the curb with their stuff and leaving it, like that bought them dibs on that spot. I don't think so, that's bull! We wandered up to the circle area by the train station where it wasn't as crowded, and about 2 hours before the parade started grabbed a bench and claimed our spot. Realistically, with a 5 and 2 year old, sitting on a bench doing nothing for 2 hours isn't possible. So we wandered around in shifts. David and Alana, then me and Ava. We each went and got food with our respective kid, then came back to our bench. About 45 minutes before the parade, some Disney cast members asked me to get up so they could move the bench forward towards the curb. While I was standing next to it and they were moving it some other people came and tried to sit in it. No way people! I've been sitting there for almost 2 hours, you are not stealing my bench! I had to kick them off of it, but I don't care. You can't swoop in right before the parade and expect a bench! Our bench ended up being perfect, because it got moved to right by the curb, so we sat in it instead of on the ground during the whole parade. And thanks to cotton candy for Alana and popcorn for Ava, they both waited patiently and the parade and all of its lights was totally worth it.

I wanted to watch the fireworks, which I'm still mad about, because everyone else wanted to leave. So we watched them from the Denny's next to our hotel right across the street, while we waited for our to-go order. Other than that, everything else we did was standard Disneyland stuff, nothing too Christmasy. But it was worth it to go that one time just to see, and they made it snow when lighting the castle up at night, which was pretty awesome. Awesome and really crowded, cause snow is a big draw.



Crazy tall Main St tree.



The castle looked way cooler at night, but it was still pretty shiny.