100 Days of Wonder – #87
I love Christmas Eve. At least now I do. I’m not sure I did as a kid really. My memories aren’t entirely clear though. I remember more snow than I know there was. I remember walking past churches with lovely choirs and organs playing (probably only happened once). I also remember grown-ups arguing and me being bored. There were plenty Christmas Eves at my Oma and Opa’s place in Hamburg when I was little. I always thought German Christmas wasn’t particularly kid friendly – waiting until after dinner, then open presents. Seems like a recipe for grumpy, overtired children. I also remember Christmas Eves in the UK, grandma’s old house which might as well have been Narnia, the dog Timmy which is the only dog ever I wasn’t scared of and the cat Puss who was the most cat of cats and didn’t really like anyone. Loved that cat. Whatever and wherever I suspect I could always be packed off with a book so it’s not like Christmas Eve wasn’t nice. Anyway, I am not a good judge of Christmas traditions because ours have always been muddled, mixing English and German, ‘doing’ Christmas with both parents and, because I am people pleasing me, keeping everyone happy. And my memory is awful too so it’s entirely possible I have just made stuff up. But now I love Christmas Eve because it’s magical. It’s magical partly because I am an adult and pay lots for therapy so I no longer feel the need to keep everyone happy and can do whatever I want without feeling guilty about it.
So, Christmas Eve this year is lush. I picked up our turkey and a few other bits and pieces up from our local farm shop this morning, then I chatted to Kath’s mum about our upcoming Disney holiday while we waited for Kath to finish work. After lunch Kath had an afternoon nap and I checked in on where Santa was on the tracker (thanks Sky TV) and faffed around a bit. So far Christmas Eve has already brought me 2 books in the gorgeous icelandic Jolabokaflod tradition which we have (along with many others) adopted over the last few years. I am about to do some food prep for tomorrow when Kath is done in the kitchen and after tea we are popping down to mum’s. We’ll be in bed early but I will definitely check the skies, just in case – would love to see the reindeer.
So what has this got to do with Disney and 100 Days of Wonder. Well, 2 things I think. I think Christmas Eve is filled with wonder. There’s no pressure, no expectations, in some ways it’s just another day but for those who dare to dream it also holds magic. It holds a ‘but what if…’ and even if you’re just laughing at me now and want to scream at me that Santa isn’t real… Christmas Eve is also an invitation to pause, reflect, be calm. Or at least it can be if that’s what we choose. And I don’t come at Christmas from religion. I am just here for the appropriation of pagan rituals and the magic we have read into the Christmas story and the magic we can experience if we just stop and breathe and scan the skies. Christmas Eve is joy and wonder. And second, Disney has over the years really helped me not care about what other people think. I don’t care if you are rolling your eyes right now. I want you to do you and leave me to do me. Am I too old for Disney? Magic isn’t real? Disney Theme Parks are dumb? Disney is for kids? It’s time for me to grow up and stop being so childish? All of those things have been suggested to me and when they were, I was embarrassed. For a while I made excuses. But I also had to acknowledge that Disney was giving me joy, making me laugh and making me happy. So I stopped listening. You can think what you want and tell me to my face, it really has no impact on me because I know that Disney makes me happy and that magic is what you create in the bubble around you. So I feel perfectly comfortable sharing with you that I will check the Santa tracker several more times, that I get excited about hearing the Polar Express bell and that I will never stop believing in the calmness and the reflective power and the what if of Christmas Eve.
100 Days of Wonder – #86
Happy Christmas Eve Eve. For the first time in my 100 days posts I couldn’t choose a picture. I scrolled and scrolled and nothing jumped out at me. I also didn’t know what to write. I’ve had complete downtime today. We did the food shop for Christmas early this morning and since then I have finished reading a book I started ages ago, talked to mum on the phone, started a blog post about the book I finished, watched Coco (lovely) and the original Ghostbusters (terrible, sorry).
Then I remembered that yesterday I had given myself one more day off to get over this cold but that I couldn’t do nothing forever so I decided to start a reset challenge on my exercise app. Our spare bedroom is our exercise room and in the hallway upstairs stands our LEGO Disney Castle with the lights and sound extras.
I turned the lights on and stood there a few minutes just looking at it, remembering the initial build in January/February 2023 (we had Covid badly and built it in 20 minute bursts over days). There are probably mistakes in the build and not all the lights (added later) are exactly where they should be but it’s ours and it brings me joy every time I walk down the hallway.
100 Days of Wonder – #85
Happy 4th Sunday in Advent! Here’s Christmas tree number 4 added to the other 3 – this time from the Animal Kingdom. Again not my photo, a Disney stock photo that came with one of our downloads. I hope you are having a lovely Sunday. Mine has been lush so far. I slept late, had coffee in bed with Odin-cat keeping me company. I started to sort out my running gear for our Disney trip so I don’t end up in a last minute having to wash stuff panic in just over 2 weeks’ time. Then I had more coffee and a mince pie with Kath and her mum who dropped by. And I watched a flurry of snow flakes fall from the sky but not settle and then the temporary darkness turn back into glorious blue sky and sunshine. It’s a day with no plans. That’s made me think about how we plan Disney. I have said several times before that planning is part of the fun – and it really is – but I also see so many social media posts about extreme planning. We don’t plan Disney down to the last second like some do. When we had the Deluxe dining plan previously a lot of the planning simply revolved around where we were going to eat – that determined which park we would need to be in when. That dining plan doesn’t exist anymore and the general plan requires less planning because there are fewer sit down meals available. We have park hopper tickets so we can move between parks as we want and therefore our itinerary is far less fixed. We won’t spend money on Lightning Lanes (or whatever we are calling paid for access to skipping queues for popular rides this month), we’ll just roll with it. That might mean long wait times for some things and we might decide to queue for things, or we might not bother but the one thing we won’t do is rush from ride to ride. I don’t really understand people who try and rush round and do all 4 parks in 1 day. It just doesn’t sound like fun. But each to their own.
It seems to me there can be a fine line between planning so as to avoid stress – I have a plan for making Christmas dinner for example, with timings and instructions to myself – and over planning which just causes stress. Disney seems to bring out the latter in people. Although maybe that’s coming from a particular perspective of having the privilege of having been lots and the luxury of time. We are not trying to ‘do’ Disney World as a once in a lifetime holiday and nor do we have to cram in all our must dos into a weekend. And in addition, our must dos are not necessarily rides. My main must dos are to walk up Main Street USA and breathe, to sit watching the gibbons and stand watching the manatees, to listen to the Japanese drummers and get a popcorn bucket with maple popcorn. I think the only ride I would be really disappointed to miss is the Winnie the Pooh ride and that’s not because the ride is brilliant but because it’s the centre of my Hundred Acre Wood where I recharge ready to head out to explore some more.
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