After lunch, we headed over to the 25 Days of Christmas shop to pick out a few new Christmas ornaments. We buy a new ornament (or two) every trip. Actually, we have ornaments from just about everywhere any of us have ever traveled. My parents started that tradition before Katie and I were born. It’s always fun to look at all of the ornaments each Christmas and reminisce about all of the trips we’ve taken over the years. It’s also fun to reminisce about the awful macaroni-covered ornaments Katie and I made as kids, but I digress…
Ugh, there’s a horrible glare in this shot, but I love the window displays outside of the store. They’re so perfectly Christmas!
Entering this shop never fails to make me smile. The ginormous Christmas décor is amazing.
I mean, GIANT CHRISTMAS TREE BRANCHES!
GIANT ORNAMENTS!
PRESENTS!
It’s all so perfect!
Mom and I spent a while scouring the store for the perfect ornament. I got a bit distracted by a Thanksgiving display, though. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. There’s nothing better than stuffing yourself with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and most importantly, pumpkin pie.
Anyway, I found these salt and pepper shakers and fell in love.
Let’s just hope that they still sell them when I’m grown up and hosting my own Thanksgiving dinner. Because I will totally be the one to host Thanksgiving dinner. My entire extended family has been made well aware of this. Someone else hosting it is not even up for discussion. It will be hosted by me. And my future husband/kids. Ok, probably just me and my future dogs. But, whatever, Thanksgiving is MINE.
While I was distracted by Thanksgiving, Mom found this ornament set. We both loved it, so we bought it. Blown Glass Spaceship Earth is my favorite. It’s so very sparkly.
After Christmasing it up, we headed over to World of Disney to over-stimulate ourselves with Disney merchandise. But first, we stopped to take a picture with Mr. Potatohead outside of the toy store.
My sucky, beat up camera decided to pose with me. It was his final hurrah.
Once we got to World of Disney, the rest of the family headed in, but I made a mad dash for Basin. I wanted to see if they sold Mickey Mouse soaps that didn’t smell like cotton candy (unlike the one at the Grand Floridian).
I found these which didn’t smell like cotton candy, but I still wasn’t too thrilled with the scent. I can’t remember what it is now, but it was a bit weird. But the colors were really cute, so if I couldn’t find anything else, I was going to buy a bar.
I also really liked this bar o’ palm tree soap.
It smelled wonderfully tropical. I figured since we stayed at the Polynesian that it would make for a good representation of our trip, so I gave up on the colorful Mickey heads and settled for this one.
But then, at the last possible second, I FINALLY found the perfect bar of soap.
The red ones smelled like Dr. Pepper (eh) but the yellow ones smelled like vanilla! SCORE! I like the scent of vanilla and it wasn’t ridiculously overpowering. Plus, what’s better than the classic Mickey colors?
I quickly made my purchase and headed over to World of Disney to share my triumph with the rest of the fam. Only that was quite difficult because WoD is so freakin’ huge. I cannot handle it in there. It’s too overwhelming. Plus, it was like 1:00 and there were a million people in there and ugh. Just ugh. I finally found the fam in the princess room looking at god knows what. One exasperated look at each other and we knew it was time to head out. So, we bought a couple bottles of water, headed out to our car, and settled in for the 2 hour drive to my grandmother’s house. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but after each of our Disney trips, we go spend a few days at my grandma’s in Clearwater. It’s always sad to leave Disney, but I do look forward to spending some time with my grandma since we only get to see her once or twice a year (if she comes up to visit us). Plus, her house is like a second home to me. I mean, I’ve been visiting every year since I was born. I have so many wonderful memories there. So, while I felt like crying because we were leaving WDW, I put on a happy face and smiled as we drove past this sign because, as you all know, with Disney, it’s never “Goodbye,” it’s "See you real soon!”
UP NEXT: A One Post PTR. Starting an actual PTR seems like a waste, but I'm excited and I want to share some of our plans with my DISfriends. For instance, ONE WEEK FROM RIGHT NOW, WE WILL BE DINING WITH POOH & CO. AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE!!!!! WOOOOO!!!!
) and every single time I use it, it makes me happy and reminds me of being in Disney.
I loved that you said "Christmasing it up" because I create sentences like that depending on what I'm doing - for example, went to a Kentucky Derby party a while back and all day said "we're derbying it up!" So I appreciated seeing you say it too! 
But I am VERY happy there is another trip report on the way 
I'm gonna have to brush up on my writing skills before my next one, I feel like I'm so "here we are, here's what we did" and that's it! 
But, at least I'll have something to look forward to on our next trip. We do have dinner ADRs at Cape May one night, so maybe after we'll have to go check out Jellyrolls. 
