Finally – the day of all days.  This is the day for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party!

And I was feeling TERRIBLE.

Back track — I haven’t slept more than 4-5 broken hours since 11/4 and now it is 11/14.  I was so sleep deprived, so at bedtime last night I took a half of a Benadryl, and hoped I’d sleep.  And I didn’t.  This wonderful day that I have been looking forward to for months and I was dragging.  I reached out to a few praying friends and pressed on.

We made chicken salad in the morning and packed up a beautiful lunch.  At 10:15AM we were entering Orlando Vineyard Premium Outlets and found the Character Warehouse store, hoping for some wonderful finds.  As soon as we got there I grabbed a spot in line.  There were close to 40 people ahead of me.  The rest of the family took time shopping and after a while Marie came and took my spot so I could shop.  I didn’t really find anything I wanted, but Nan and Nene each found a few things.  From there we headed over to Disney Springs.

Disney Springs is much different than it used to be in terms of parking.  OY.  We parked our van, got out, and realized we weren’t in the Marketplace side.  We ventured on a little and I was rewarded with this beauty.

Kids took turns trying on a gauntlet – two picked Thanos and two picked Ironman.  There’s a lot you could read into that…

Me dropping into work for a bit. 

We found a map to determine how far we were from the Christmas Tree Trail and I said something like, “As if,” and we went back to the van and drove over.

Somewhere about this point I sat on a wall and started to cry.  Here it was this day I’d looked forward to and paid dearly for and I felt terrible.  I usually roll with fatigue, but today it was daunting.  I dusted myself off and we proceeded. 

Disney Springs was so nicely decorated.

Christmas Tree Trail did not disappoint.  It was beautiful.  And there was a roving PhotoPass photographer who helped me with the app a little, too.

We went back to the van and pulled out our lunch and something wonderful happened.  I started to feel GREAT.  This is 1:36PM.

We went back to the house for some people to change and for me to snap a photo of my fabulous touring plan. 

AT 3:26PM we were on the ferry on the way to Magic Kingdom.  As we were waiting for the park to start admitting party guests my sister realized she’d left her phone in the car at the TTC.  If you’ve ever been to MK you know there is no quick “run to the car.”  She and Nan headed back to get her phone.  It took them almost 45 minutes. 

We were in at 3:40PM and got our bracelets.  We had FPP for Peter Pan, Enchanted Tales with Belle, and the many adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

We got our first treats as we used the bypass sidewalk behind main street.  We stopped for a few PhotoPass photos, too.

We were keeping tabs with Mom and Kelly as they made their route.  We rode Peter Pan and watched Philharmagic and rode the Carrousel. 

We regrouped in time to watch Belle together.

Marie left us at 5:50 to go queue to meet Jack Skellington and Sally Ragdoll. 

The rest of us went to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Tabitha changed her outfit.  We found three treat stations and had a PhotoPass taken.

 

Next thing you know, Marie was catching up with us to ride Space Mountain with the Christmas overlay.

We hurried to see Mickey’s Most Merriest Celebration arriving just as it started.  The four kids hurried to the front of the stage, while the three adults stayed back.

Then off to more treats.

We hurried to Tomorrowland for the Christmas show.  It was SO SHORT!

We went to the Speedway at 8:45PM  with the Christmas overlay.  And I scooted to buy myself a shirt.

We were off by 8:55PM

We did the Monsters Christmas show at 9:40PM  which was essentially the same show with minor changes to the script. 

Then the 10PM fireworks.  We walked right up to the hub.  I would say about  5-10% of my visibility was obscured because I didn’t queue earlier.  It was worth it to do more.  We were all EXTREMELY delighted by the show.  It was MUCH longer than we expected (maybe because the MMMC and TTCS were so short).  It was elegant and festive and so excellent.

When the show was over it was raining lightly.  There really wasn’t much left to do.  We moved over to Frontierland for where we wanted to watch the parade.  On the way we saw Mary Poppins and Bert.

We found a planter Nan could sit on and just waited for the parade.  We’d really done everything and we were getting tired.

The parade was excellent.  It was so pretty and fun.

Imagine my horror the next day when I realized the settings on my camera were hosed up.  Honestly – I am way over camera issues (Grand Canyon 2018 – I’m looking at you).

We hurried over to 7DMT after the parade and had gotten almost to the front of the line when the stupid ride went down AGAIN.  Grrrrr.  So we hurried over to Peter Pan and everyone but I rode it.

It was after midnight before we got on the monorail.