Bret's Christmas 2006

Tevia's post was pretty good - and contains most of my sentiments, but I thought I would add a few things. I enjoyed the trip to Disneyland. It was a lot of driving and I admit I missed the whole wake up and rush to the presents under the tree routine, but it was nice and built some good memories. My favorite ride was Pirates of the Carribean. Captain Jack could be seen in a few places - and he looked pretty real in a couple of them. In fact, the first sighting I thought was an actual person (I didn't assume Mr Depp was spending his Christmas morning hiding in a ride at Disneyland, but perhaps the character look-alike was). There was also a really cool place where it looked like you were going into a waterfall and the head of Davey Jones was floating. It ended up being smoke with projection on it - but a very cool effect.

It was cool seeing Darth Vader, Darth Maul (who was actually very good at mimicking some of Maul's moves in the film) and Storm Troopers. I was confident they would pick Jarek, but my luck didn't rub off on him this time.

The thing that made the day for me was the fireworks and snow. We had ideal positioning (not really seating) for the show. It was spectacular. I was wondering if they would do any Christmas Carols (i.e. religious - and not just Santa Clausy) and when they put on Joy to the World and Silent Night it brought tears to my eyes to see so many people watching a sight put to the music of worship. Then afterwards the snow (soap) began and it looked very real. It was a beautiful sight set to the music of White Christmas (which, by the way, was written while he was in Phoenix, AZ - hence he was dreaming of ...). I think ideally it would have been to go on Christmas Eve and enjoy that spectacle and then go back home to wake on Christmas day. But unless you live in Southern California, that wouldn't work.

All in all a great trip and worthy of the annals of Wall (no, not anals).