A Christmas Disneyland Visit Part 2

Time for part 2 of our Disneyland trip celebrating Christmas.

It's lunchtime so you know that means we're off to the Pacific Wharf Cafe for some bread. It's time for a decision kids. Are you going to want a Mickey Gingerbread Cookie now or Popcorn later today? You have to decide together.
After some consultation they chose to get popcorn later.

Lunch is a good time to play with their food. Ian was proud of his Little Green Man alien with 3 eyes.

Alli made a lady with a big smile.

We've recently watched Olaf's Frozen Adventure and Ian thinks this looks like Olaf's face in the Flemi Stew.

What do you think? Not bad from memory I think. 

The ducks were very hungry today and were very thankful for all the bread.

Ian is a good elf and is always looking out for others. Here he's offering our bread to other people who are also watching the ducks.

Now that the park is getting crowded it's time to go back to the areas where there aren't any lines. Like back over to Redwood Creek to play some games!

Here's the map the kids got. Meet Santa and play Elf Games!

There's lots of things to do.

• Gift Hide and Seek!
• Jingle Bridge!
• Pack the Presents Game!
• Chip and Dale's Gift!
• Treats for Santa!
• Fly with the Reindeer!

Last week the kids did the Gift Hide and Seek, earning stickers for getting the right answer to what snack elves like most. Snow Cones. They also found Chip and Dale's Gift from Santa last week.

But first a little bit of rock climbing.

Let's tackle that Jingle Bridge.

The normal rope bridges have been outfitted with lots of bells underneath.

And when you jump, they jingle for the whole camp to hear.

I happened to be recording video and caught some commentary from some people who were watching. When a little girl got her foot stuck they said "Aww, the elves are helping." "That's what elves do!"

Next we're flying with the reindeer.

The tops of the zip-lines are decorated with flying reindeer

I'm amazed at the height the kids get on these. They're nearly vertical.

Hold on tight!

I thought that was the end of that, but after we left that area, Cast Member Terry called the kids over. He had something special for them. He pulled out a big stack of stickers from his pocket and gave one to each of the kids.

Personalized Prep and Landing Elf stickers! I wonder when he did that? They were already written up when he called us over.

Thanks Terry! This is the second time he's gone out of his way for us. The first time he did a little trivia game with the kids for them to earn stickers. I need to submit a cast compliment for him.

Next it was time for the Pack the Presents Game. The elves have made lots of presents at the top of the slides and need helpers to deliver them to Santa's sack at the bottom.

Go Alli!

And into the sack.

Ian's turn.

He was super fast down the slide and rushing over to throw it into the sack.

The video.

The only thing left is the Treats for Santa. It's an extra-charge activity where for $7.50 (at least in 2017) you can decorate a cookie with frosting and sprinkles. We've done it before, back in 2017 actually. Both kids were so little! We'll see if we get to it this year.

Continuing our quest to ride the Christmas rides, there's a few more over in Disneyland that we have to go on.

Jack has taken over the Haunted Mansion and decorated it for Christmas.

I think this might be one of the last times the four of us squeeze into one Doom Buggy. Kids are getting bigger!

It's time for the popcorn that was promised to the kids. And when you're thinking about getting popcorn at Disneyland there's really only one place to go. For some reason the popcorn stand by the Matterhorn has the yellowest most buttery popcorn we've found. Today was no exception.

And the line today is much more reasonable than past weeks. The craze to get the Mickey tree has started to die down I guess. Other parts of park had longer lines, but there were only 3 parties in front of us.

It's time to ride the Holiday version of it's a small world. The kids are pretty adorable in their elf outfits. Multiple people called out "Prep and Landing" and pointed them out to the others in their party.

You've already started singing the 12 Days of Christmas (lot of different versions of it). Alli for some reason keeps thinking the last line is "A partridge in a bear tree". Hey Alli, I found your bear tree!

As luck would have it the first and second rows were ours, which meant the kids got their own row and they got to lead us through the attraction.

Has there's always been the Northern Lights right behind the Canadian Mountie? I'm just now seeing it and I love it! I want to go see those some time in person!

I love how they've decorated for Christmas.

Ain't that the truth! It was 86 degrees with beautiful blue skies.

It's been a fun day at the parks and it's always nice to have something to celebrate. On the way out the kids really wanted to see the Gingerbread house in the Grand Californian. We were making guesses on whether it was complete or not. The kids both thought no, while Theresa and I thought yes.

And the kids were right. It's looking pretty good, but there's still a bit left to do, as evident by the pastry scraper that was left on the roof. There's also some pieces that are falling off that will need to be cleaned up.
Despite all that, there's been a bunch of hidden Mickey's added and the kids were excited to find a lot of them. I didn't count all the ones we found, but I think we're in store for quite a few Hidden Mickeys to discover this year.

As we were walking out of the Grand, the kids wanted a snack. Funyuns is a favorite.
Alli - Five golden rings!

Both kids - Can we stop at the gazebo?
Time to get some energy out.
"On your mark. Get set..."
Alli anticipates the countdown and always starts running after I say "Get set."
They both think it's hilarious as she walks her way back to the start line.

They like to get timed as they race to different things. Then they'll race to them again and try to beat their time.

You might think that Ian wins them all since he's 2 years older, but Alli gets a few too.
Alli you're super fast! You run like a girl! Nice job!

Alli - Girls are focused on winning!
Ian - I just want to have fun.
Makes sense to me.

To finish the day, I came up with a few fun races to do. The kids both love Mario Kart and you might know that there's different race circuits you can win. As such, I had the kids run the Mushroom Cup, the Leaf Cup, and the Star Cup. I'm going to have to brush up on all the other Mario Kart Cups to keep things interesting.

What a fun day of Christmas celebration at Disneyland!