Christmas in Disneyland

After opening presents Christmas morning the whole family packed up and headed to Disneyland in Anaheim. Well, all of us, including both my parents and Kristina's, minus my dad. You see, over the weekend he was unfortunate enough to get the flu that has been going around and broke a 15 year streak of not throwing up. It hit him really hard.

Luckily he recovered on Christmas eve, and while he wasn't feeling well enough to join us on Christmas day he flew down and met us in L.A. While it was great to have dad back and feeling well the real tragedy of the trip started when Anna came down with the same illness as we arrived and Joe followed the next morning. So for my brother and sister they spent almost the whole time in SoCal miserable in their room. (They did get a chance on the final day to come over to the park and get in a few rides, but for the most part they spent the entire trip sick.)

Though it was sad to have Joe and Anna out of action the rest of us had a fantastic time at Disneyland, with Amara bordering on Euphoric.

She met Disney princesses, like Mulan, Belle and Jasmin.







And she danced, and learned how to curtsy at the Princess Coronation ceremony.



She got to ride in a car with Chip.



Hug Pluto.




And to top it all off she got to be Jafar in the story time production of Aladdin.





The storytellers were just great, and she was so excited to be selected to play the part of Jafar. You can see it was a silly portrayal of the character. She had to act with the other characters and the master storyteller gave her a cutout of Jafar to use. She really soaked in the audience applause and when she had finished her part she was over the moon and just sat smiling blissfully.



There was an adorable exchange when she first got up on stage and the storyteller was trying to get her name. She kept repeating it and he couldn't understand her since she can't enunciate the "R" in her name clearly. During their struggles she stops and says "Its Amara...I just can't say the R right."

Ethan also loved the park.



He especially loved the Winnie the Pooh ride and insisted that we go on it multiple times. He especially loved the birthday scene near the end of the ride.



He also handled a few of the more adult oriented rides really well. He made it through the drop in Pirates and through the Haunted Mansion without completely breaking down. Whenever he got scared he just buried is face in Kristina's shoulder.

Disneyland during Christmas is really a special time with Christmas decorations everywhere, including within the rides, and Christmas songs playing in the background.



I even ventured in "It's a Small World" since the bulk of the music was Christmas music. (Breaking a promise I made to myself some 14 years ago to never enter the ride again. Most of you know already know why.)

Seeing Sleeping Beauty's Castle lit up was particularly striking.



It was a great Christmas experience.



The only disappointing thing about Disneyland itself was that I didn't see any reference to the greatest Disney movie of all time. Robin Hood.