Another Magical Year Ends

Our time the last two weeks of 2010 was generally spent hanging out at the RV, eBaying some stuff we had in storage, and of course going to Disney World. We finally ventured over to the Magic Kingdom to catch Disney’s Main Street Electrical Light Parade, a 20-minute nighttime procession featuring floats and live performers covered in half a million lights timed to a synchronized soundtrack. The parade made its return engagement this summer replacing the Spectromagic parade, and has been extended indefinitely. Tinker Bell leads off the parade waving to the crowd from the basket of a hot air balloon followed by Mickey and Minnie on the Electrical Parade train driven by Goofy. Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Pinnochio are just a few of the other floats, and the entire parade ends with a float called “To Honor America”. Though this is a very popular parade and fun to see, personally we still prefer Spectromagic and hope it returns.












We stayed to watch the Wishes fireworks spectacular that happen above and around the backdrop of Cinderella’s Castle. The Castle is stunning this time of year with more than 200,000 tiny white lights attached to netting that drapes over the Castle creating a glistening icicle effect. During the day, you can't even see any of the lights or netting and then magically at night the lights are turned on, and voila! The Castle changes colors throughout the evening so if you don’t particularly like the color it is now, stick around for a few minutes and the color will change!


During the holidays, the pavilions at Epcot’s World Showcase come alive with Holidays Around the World. Each country brings to life their unique holiday traditions and legends through decorations and Holiday Storytellers. We’d seen some of these in the past, but there were others we hadn’t. Russ didn’t really care one way or the other about seeing them, so one afternoon I went over by myself. It turned out to be a beautiful, warm Florida day, something we hadn't had for a couple of weeks down here. Though the telling of each tradition is only about 5 minutes long, there’s no real flow to the timing so that you can simply go from one country to the next. I had sort of mapped out a plan and managed to see 7 of the 12: Papa Noel – Canada, Pere Noel – France, the Daruma Vendor – Japan, Kwanzaa – U.S., Helga – Germany, The Monkey King – China, and Los Tres Reyes Magos – Mexico plus I passed Santa and Mrs. Claus with children lined up ready to sit on their laps. Unfortunately, the timing was just off to see the others. In fact I had planned to catch Julenissen and Sigrid at Norway even though I had seen them before. While waiting for their first performance of the day at 3:10pm, a cast member informed us that the 3:10 performance was cancelled but we could return for the 3:50 show. Well bummer!! I knew I wouldn’t make that one because I had to get something to eat and then get in line for the 5pm Candlelight Processional performance narrated by Thomas Gibson (Dharma & Greg, Criminal Minds). He was alright, pretty much just reading it straight and very dry, but the music is always incredible.




















We returned a few nights later to catch country music artist, Trace Adkins, narrate the Processional. Beforehand I wondered aloud if he would be wearing his cowboy hat, and sure enough he came onstage with it on, but before he started reading, he respectfully removed it till the end. His big baritone voice was perfect for the narration.

Our Christmas Eve tradition for the last couple of years has been to fight the crowds and attend the Candlelight Processional. Once again this year the narrator was Edward James Olmos (Stand and Deliver, Battlestar Galactica). He is another great one to see as he puts so much emotion and emphasis into the narration, sings along with several of the songs, and even translates small sections of it into Spanish. We were pleasantly surprised that even though it was Christmas Eve, the line was not too long for the middle performance nor the last one, both of which we attended. (Below are a couple of pictures to give you a little better idea of the scope and size of the Candlelight Processional.)










The last night for the Processional was Dec. 30 with guest narrator Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God, West Wing, Dancing with the Stars), and of course we attended. Since she is deaf, she performed the narration in American Sign Language and was voiced by her personal interpreter, Jack Jason. The WDW interpreter signs only the songs on nights when Marlee narrates, and the whole thing is still very moving. At one point during each performance when the choir sings Silent Night, the conductor turns out to the audience and conducts us to sing along. As we sang, Marlee signed along, turning more towards the choir as if she was singing back to them, and it was very moving. During her remarks at the end, she credited the Walt Disney World Choir standing behind her with tapping their feet during the songs so she could feel the rhythm. We had no idea they were doing that and had been wondering how she was keeping the beat, swaying her body in time to the music, at times tapping her hand against her hip, and figured she was somehow feeling the music. Now we knew…very cool.

We stayed for Illuminations, and as we were heading towards the exit afterwards, we came across a party getting started right in front of the fountains near Spaceship Earth…DJ pumping music...people dancing and singing along...what a blast! It was New Year’s Eve Eve, and they were getting everybody ready for the big party the next night! We watched for a little bit but didn’t stay too long since we wanted to make it over to Magic Kingdom for the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks. We timed everything just right and arrived just as the Electrical Light Parade was finishing at the front of the park. This was perfect because we could follow along right behind as they made their way up Main Street, giving us an escort to the area where we wanted to be in front of the Castle. We found a great spot to hang out at 11pm, waiting for the fireworks to begin at 11:50….yep, we were going to have to wait that long, and we didn’t dare move from our spot! As the crowd grew around us, a DJ on the Castle stage made the time fly by with loud, pounding music, and encouraging everyone to dance and sing along. The Fantasy in the Sky fireworks are only performed a couple of times a year, and what we saw was spectacular, awesome, fantastic!! They began promptly at 11:50 as a normal fireworks show (well, as normal as Disney does!) timed to Disney music, and then a couple of minutes before midnight, Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy came on over the loudspeakers creating a New Year’s countdown. Right at midnight the grandest fireworks you’ve ever seen exploded 360 degrees around the park…absolutely breathtaking!!! I’m sure everyone felt like a little kid again…eyes wide with amazement!! Disney sure knows how to throw a party!!