disney at christmas

[disneylovingfamily:4]

Don't want to be a downer on this thread, but I've spent so much time here planning and waiting with my Disney friends. I got the diagnosis of breast cancer this week, and we are cancelling our 30th anniversary trip. Our family is devastated, I have doctors and tests to deal with. We were supposed to be leaving tomorrow. We thought it might be good to get away for a week and have fun, but it's going to be too hard with this hanging over us, and we need to get the ball rolling on my treatment asap. Pretty rotten timing all round, before Christmas too. I will probably keep reading this thread anyway enjoying everyones fun vicariously. Give your loved ones an extra hug today and remember you just don't know what tomorrow is going to bring you.

You are in my prayers!!!! I pray your next Disney trip will be your celebration trip for being cancer free!!!

 

[mvf-m11c]

smiley_face2,

My thoughts and prayers are with you. I'm hoping that your treatment goes well and be cancer free.

 

[lapdwife]

Don't want to be a downer on this thread, but I've spent so much time here planning and waiting with my Disney friends. I got the diagnosis of breast cancer this week, and we are cancelling our 30th anniversary trip. .

Take care of yourself! Disney will be there waiting when you're ready. Keep us posted.

 

[Funball]

Don't want to be a downer on this thread, but I've spent so much time here planning and waiting with my Disney friends. I got the diagnosis of breast cancer this week, and we are cancelling our 30th anniversary trip. Our family is devastated, I have doctors and tests to deal with. We were supposed to be leaving tomorrow. We thought it might be good to get away for a week and have fun, but it's going to be too hard with this hanging over us, and we need to get the ball rolling on my treatment asap. Pretty rotten timing all round, before Christmas too. I will probably keep reading this thread anyway enjoying everyones fun vicariously. Give your loved ones an extra hug today and remember you just don't know what tomorrow is going to bring you.

oh my dear. this is sad. i really am sad for you.. i just want to cry and if i could i'd give you a hug. my best friend just overcame breast cancer at the age of 48 and so i have hope for you. but its a long haul, but better to get a jump start on those test now then wait! , smiley face 2 i am just soo soo sad for you.....i hope you will keep us updated.

 

[smiley_face2]

Thankyou all for all your good wishes, prayers and pixie dust!
Sherry, no symptoms from this, but I have an ongoing condition with my esophagus which I've had surgery for. I get spasms in my chest that are painful enough to have to take dilaudid for. It was when I was massaging my chest to try and help this I discovered it. It's only been a year and 9 months since my last mammo, so it has come up very quickly. It's a good inch and half. They called it an infiltrating type, and it's very aggresive, so it needs dealing with pronto! I'm lucky to have a top surgeon to help me, her last name is Kuusk. She teaches and has written a book and is considered the best in the field here so I'm hopeful it will go well. Don't know yet who the oncologist will be. I'm just worrying until I find out for sure just how far it's gone. Thankyou all again, and I won't expect any further replies to this here, I DO NOT want to hijack this awesome thread! I feel bad enough for causing such worry to my poor family, and having to cancel a holiday they were all looking forward to so much.

 

[Funball]

ur not hijacking this thread. its important to all of us that you get better... we are all like family here and so when something like this happends to a fellow diser i think it effects us all on a personal level. And you know you have all our support!!

 

[blackjackdelta]

ur not hijacking this thread. its important to all of us that you get better... we are all like family here and so when something like this happends to a fellow diser i think it effects us all on a personal level. And you know you have all our support!!

I have to agree with Sara. Being a bit of a black sheep in my immediate family because of past occupations, I have always found that my family is there if and when I need them no matter what. It sometimes amazes me what a supportive family the diser's really are.

Jack

 

[SueTGGR]

I feel bad enough for causing such worry to my poor family, and having to cancel a holiday they were all looking forward to so much.

Wishing you healing power and make sure you think the same. Not that it was breast cancer, but my Mom was diagnosed with colon cancer and she "didn't want to worry us". She was told by her Dr that she had 6 months. She didn't tell us until she was 2 months past that. I still believe she lived her life too much for wanting to not be a bother or worry us. So, take this time to be selfish and talk when you need to, get hugs when you feel like it & cry when you feel like it. Family ALWAYS understands! Wishing you the best and know there are lots of survivors out there!
Later,
Sue

 

[summer0407]

Thankyou all for all your good wishes, prayers and pixie dust!
Sherry, no symptoms from this, but I have an ongoing condition with my esophagus which I've had surgery for. I get spasms in my chest that are painful enough to have to take dilaudid for. It was when I was massaging my chest to try and help this I discovered it. It's only been a year and 9 months since my last mammo, so it has come up very quickly. It's a good inch and half. They called it an infiltrating type, and it's very aggresive, so it needs dealing with pronto! I'm lucky to have a top surgeon to help me, her last name is Kuusk. She teaches and has written a book and is considered the best in the field here so I'm hopeful it will go well. Don't know yet who the oncologist will be. I'm just worrying until I find out for sure just how far it's gone. Thankyou all again, and I won't expect any further replies to this here, I DO NOT want to hijack this awesome thread! I feel bad enough for causing such worry to my poor family, and having to cancel a holiday they were all looking forward to so much.

So sorry to hear about this,keeping you in my prayers!!

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Thankyou all for all your good wishes, prayers and pixie dust!
Sherry, no symptoms from this, but I have an ongoing condition with my esophagus which I've had surgery for. I get spasms in my chest that are painful enough to have to take dilaudid for. It was when I was massaging my chest to try and help this I discovered it. It's only been a year and 9 months since my last mammo, so it has come up very quickly. It's a good inch and half. They called it an infiltrating type, and it's very aggresive, so it needs dealing with pronto! I'm lucky to have a top surgeon to help me, her last name is Kuusk. She teaches and has written a book and is considered the best in the field here so I'm hopeful it will go well. Don't know yet who the oncologist will be. I'm just worrying until I find out for sure just how far it's gone. Thankyou all again, and I won't expect any further replies to this here, I DO NOT want to hijack this awesome thread! I feel bad enough for causing such worry to my poor family, and having to cancel a holiday they were all looking forward to so much.

Smiley_face2, I'm so sorry to hear what happened to you. Keeping you & your family in my thoughts and prayers.

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Photopass? I don't need no stinkin' photopass.

Omg Mike, you finally got to take a trip during Christmas! Did you absolutely love it? Did you do a trip report? I'm so jealous. This is the 2nd Disneyland holidays in a row that I'll be missing. I'm really enjoying the photos in this thread! I love your shot above! Yeah, who needs Photopass anyway?

 

[tinkermell]

Smiley face,
You are definitely not hijacking this thread. Like all of the others have said, we are like family here. Please know that my thoughts and prayers are with your for a comfort and peace, that passes all understanding.

 

[pbbecker]

I just posted this picture on the christmas card thread since it's my favorite disneyland holiday picture ever and I used it for my christmas card in 2008. I thought I should post it here too. Of course right when this amazing photo op came about it was also nap time for my then 2 year old who didn't cooperate very well.

We leave tomorrow at 4 am to drive down to Disneyland! I can't wait!

 

[Sherry E]

I just posted this picture on the christmas card thread since it's my favorite disneyland holiday picture ever and I used it for my christmas card in 2008. I thought I should post it here too. Of course right when this amazing photo op came about it was also nap time for my then 2 year old who didn't cooperate very well.

We leave tomorrow at 4 am to drive down to Disneyland! I can't wait!

Great photo, pbbecker!! Not only do you have a lovely family, but you got almost the whole Winter Sweater Army in one picture, minus Daisy, who is sometimes out and sometimes not (JustAKid, are you out there? I know you wanted characters in their holiday attire!)! That is an awesome photo, although quite rare! I don't think I have ever seen another photo with that many Winter Sweater Army characters together - or that many characters together, period - unless it was a pre-arranged professional photo, that is. Excellent contribution to the Disney at Christmas thread!!! I can't believe you held out on us all this time!!

 

[tksbaskets]

I just posted this picture on the christmas card thread since it's my favorite disneyland holiday picture ever and I used it for my christmas card in 2008. I thought I should post it here too. Of course right when this amazing photo op came about it was also nap time for my then 2 year old who didn't cooperate very well.

We leave tomorrow at 4 am to drive down to Disneyland! I can't wait!

Very sweet photo! Have a wonderful trip to DL!

 

[Goofy_Mom]

We've returned from our trip!!

On IASW I did smell the peppermint and one other sent I couldn't quite identify, cookies i think. HMH did have the gingerbread smell and the display was awesome.

There are two different kinds of gingerbread cookies. They regular gingerbread man was fairly large, a little crispy around the edges and soft in the middle. The one with chocolate ears is smaller and soft all over. The "ears" one is found at the candy stores and the "man" one is found at the bakeries.

The demitesse was good, though not what I was expecting. I pictured it as a brownie with a mouse on top with whipped cream. It's a mouse dessert.

The Tron thing is nothing special. Every night they have an "opening" where there is a dance number. It starts set in the 80's with two couples playing the Tron video game and then danceing with some trademark 80's moves. Evens their costums and hair/make up were very 80's. Then the future Tron characters come out. Shortly after that I lost interest and found something else to do. The party itself isn't very crowded and full of mostly young teens to young adults. There were some kids on Hollywood Blvd playing frisbee and some facepainting that glows under black light.

I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I go through them and load them.

 

[pbbecker]

Great photo, pbbecker!! Not only do you have a lovely family, but you got almost the whole Winter Sweater Army in one picture, minus Daisy, who is sometimes out and sometimes not (JustAKid, are you out there? I know you wanted characters in their holiday attire!)! That is an awesome photo, although quite rare! I don't think I have ever seen another photo with that many Winter Sweater Army characters together - or that many characters together, period - unless it was a pre-arranged professional photo, that is. Excellent contribution to the Disney at Christmas thread!!! I can't believe you held out on us all this time!!

Thanks Sherry! It is a very rare photo that I can't believe I got! I've only been to DL at the holidays once in 2008 for two days and this was day 1. It was pouring rain so all the sweater army (as you called them) were rotating in the big theater building (don't know it's real name). We booked it there so we wouldn't get soaked and we wanted to see the characters of course. We spent hours playing with each set of characters pretty much by ourselves (which I have plenty of pictures of if you want to see them). During this time, I made friends with the CM in charge of the characters and I just asked her if there was anyway to get a picture with all 7 and she said, "yes"! I really couldn't believe it! It took a little time to get all the characters out together since one set was on break. A few other people who were in the building noticed what we were doing and asked to get a photo too but the CM told them no. As soon as we got a few photos the characters were whisked away for a few minutes, then resumed their schedule. The character interaction we got this day was amazing. It's by far the best day I've ever had at DL. Since that trip my DD 2 at the time now 4 genuinely believes the characters are her personal friends. She looks through the photo album from that trip pretty much weekly. I've had a few rare character encounters just by being friendly to the CM's and going during off times. Sorry to hold out, I've only posted photos once before on the creative disign thread. Also, I'm new to this thread. We are headed back to DL for the holidays tomorrow this time with my DH instead of my mom and for 4 days!

 

[tksbaskets]

As long as we are sharing Christmas Letter/Card photos - here is my favorite pic from our Dec '09 trip. Taken at the Gazebo at DCA between spins on TSMM.

Working on our Christmas letter this weekend.

 

[Sherry E]

We've returned from our trip!!

On IASW I did smell the peppermint and one other sent I couldn't quite identify, cookies i think. HMH did have the gingerbread smell and the display was awesome.

There are two different kinds of gingerbread cookies. They regular gingerbread man was fairly large, a little crispy around the edges and soft in the middle. The one with chocolate ears is smaller and soft all over. The "ears" one is found at the candy stores and the "man" one is found at the bakeries.

The demitesse was good, though not what I was expecting. I pictured it as a brownie with a mouse on top with whipped cream. It's a mouse dessert.

The Tron thing is nothing special. Every night they have an "opening" where there is a dance number. It starts set in the 80's with two couples playing the Tron video game and then danceing with some trademark 80's moves. Evens their costums and hair/make up were very 80's. Then the future Tron characters come out. Shortly after that I lost interest and found something else to do. The party itself isn't very crowded and full of mostly young teens to young adults. There were some kids on Hollywood Blvd playing frisbee and some facepainting that glows under black light.

I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I go through them and load them.

Thank you so much, Goofy_Mom, for letting us know the scoop. I see I have a couple of things to look forward to in a couple of weeks. From what you described, it sounds as if the demitasse dessert has changed from what it used to be a couple of years ago - unless there are two varieties of it being sold, like there were for Halloween. Halloween had a tiramisu demitasse, and also a demitasse with a muffin at the bottom and mousse on top.

The old version of the Christmas demitasse - from a couple of years ago - was what we fondly referred to as the "peppermint pot cake." It was not a brownie, by any means. It was just some cake - a small piece of dry white cake, I think - shoved into the bottom of a collectible holiday cup/mug. The cup/mug was the "pot." There was some peppermint sauce poured over the cake, and then whipped cream piled over the sauce, and sprinkles on top of the whipped cream. And there was at least one candy cane hanging from the side of the cup/mug.

So unless there are two versions of the holiday demitasse this year, then it sounds as if the all-mousse version has replaced the "pot cake" version. They change recipes for things here and there, which is sometimes good and sometimes not good.

Speaking of which...as for the gingerbread cookies - forgetting about the ones without ears for the moment and just focusing on the ears cookies - there are still at least two sizes of the cookies with Mickey ears, BUT I don't know if they are both sold to the public.

The ones that I saw in Marceline's (which would be the cookies sold in all of the candy shops that you mentioned) were smaller and narrower than they used to be in previous years and had pointier feet, which was different from the old version. They had chocolate ears. The ones I saw were also a bit hard and crispy, but that was likely because they were sitting out in the open air on the counter, and probably had been there for a while. I think that most of the 'ears' cookies are not supposed to be hard and crunchy, especially if they are fresh batches.

The second size of the 'ears' cookies is what MattsPrincess showed us in a photo from the holiday tour she took on her recent DLR trip. The cookies have red buttons, and sprinkled ears instead of chocolate ears, BUT they were the same large and wide size that the original cookies used to be, like the ones I bought in 2008. They picked up their cookies for the tour in ToonTown, I think - not at a bake shop or a candy store.

So I am thinking that, perhaps, the 'bigger' ears cookies - which are like the ones from the past except with sprinkles - are now only available to people on the holiday tour?? That's my guess. Maybe they wanted to give a larger cookie to the people paying money for the tour, while the smaller ears cookies are on sale to everyone in the candy stores. Even though that annoys me because I want the bigger cookie like the ones I got before, I can totally understand if they want to offer something slightly better and larger to the folks who pay extra money for the tour. It makes complete sense to me.

It sounds like they refreshed the scents in IASW Holiday and HMH since when I was there on 11/13, which is great to hear. Normally I get a very strong whiff of gingerbread on HMH, but not that time. And even though the peppermint scent on IASW is usually very faint, I can always smell it because I know where in the ride to start sniffing! That trip on 11/13, however, there was no peppermint. You're right - there is another smell in IASWH. It's something like cookies, but I can't tell what kind. It doesn't smell like the strong gingerbread that you smell on HMH, but it's something cookie-esque. Also, there is like a pine tree scent or fir tree scent of some kind in IASWH. Did you catch that one too?

In any case, I am thrilled to hear that the scents have returned to both HMH and IASWH!! I couldn't figure out where they were when I was there a couple of weeks ago, and was disappointed.

Sounds like you had a great time- I know we all can't wait to see your photos!!

 

[JH87]

I love everyone's Christmas card photos!!