Monthly Archives: December 2011

Where In Disneyland? Evening Edition

9 Comments Posted by on December 6, 2011

How well do you know your park? Here are a few pics I captured of things I thought were particularly interesting at night. Can you name them? At the bottom will be the answers in Spoilervision (highlight the text with your cursor and it will show up). Please feel free to leave a comment saying how many you got right! But don’t include the answers–they’re already included ;).

1.

2.

 

3.

 

4.

5.

 

6.

 

7.

 

8.

 

 

9.

 

10.

 

11.

 

12.

 

Answers!

  1. Tomorrowland
  2. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
  3. The former loading dock of the Motor Boat Cruise, Fantasyland
  4. New Orleans Square (specifically above the Cristal d’Orleans shop)
  5. Autopia
  6. Matterhorn Mountain
  7. Tarzan’s Treehouse
  8. Storybook Land Canal Boats
  9. Above the Village Haus restaurant, Fantasyland
  10. Big Thunder Ranch, Frontierland
  11. The entrance to Club 33 (this is a tour group)
  12. Walt’s apartment above the fire station!

 

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Candlelight Processional 2011

8 Comments Posted by on December 5, 2011

Disneyland has some pretty awesome traditions, and pretty awesome things to see in Town Square (which is the area around the flag pole when you first enter the park and duck under the bridges). The flag retreat ceremony on September 11th was really moving. Tonight I got to see the Candlelight Processional and wow. I mean WOW. Disneyland did not disappoint.

The Candlelight Processional started in 1958 by Walt himself. It consists of live musicians and a choir of over 600 people–many high school students–and a celebrity narrator. This year’s narrator was Gary Sinise. There were 4 performances this year, at 5:30 and 8:00 Saturday and Sunday. I needed to renew my pass so I headed over early and hoped to maybe make the 5:30 performance, but the 8:00 for sure.

I got lucky, arriving at 4:30 finding a quite good spot in the roped-off area. In true Disneyland fashion, I stood in my little spot and made friends with the people around me.

Pre-show setup

Looking at the train station, I was on the left-hand side. But not over on the way left-hand side by this:

People and a decoration of some sort

As it started to get dark, a small honor guard came out for the flag retreat.

Just three people

starting the retreat

Usually they call up members of the armed forces (go Zach!!!) but this year they couldn’t since the entire area was roped off. As the flag came down they played the national anthem.

Our flags

Let me just take a moment to say that I love our national anthem. I really do. However, sometimes I wish they had picked something a little easier to sing.

Since there was some light out still, I got a shot of the tree

I never realized how many ornaments they have on there

Official-looking people started to congregate up at the stage area.

I AM AN AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHER!

As the sun went down they also lit up the Christmas tree. I got a sweet shot of the tree right at the moment when they lit the whole thing up!

Guess I’m not so bad after all

After that things started happening up front. The musicians were all set up and the lights on Main Street were dimmed, so we knew the singers were on their way.

Blue lights and stuff

The first ones out were the cast member choir

They were in green and formed a tree shape in the middle of the choirs

The performers were shrouded in darkness, which made the “candles” look super cool.

Each one of these lights is a person

They started lighting up the choir in different colors as they sang traditional songs.

Half of the combined choir

Then the celebrity stepped up. As you can clearly see from the picture, it was Gary Sinise.

Obviously

He read the “Christmas Story.” Normally Disneyland likes to be as inclusive as possible (when lighting up the tree everyone shouts “Happy Holidays!”) but in keeping with the tradition of the Procession, most of the story came straight from the Bible (the Gospel of Luke, to be specific). In between parts of the readings, the choir joined in with traditional songs. There was also a hand bell choir from Claremont United Church of Christ (UCC represent!!), which was just lovely.

The blue lights were super cool too.

Choir and orchestra

Here’s an amazing picture that shows the whole choir and also the tree obscuring some of my view.

Suitable for framing

At that point I followed my own policy and put the camera down to enjoy the show in real time. There were three soloists and I’ll admit I cried a bit during the audience participation rendition of Silent Night. Everyone stood for the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah, and they wrapped up the performance with an amazing rendition of Joy to the World.

It gave me chills

The Candlelight Procession was truly a sight to behold, and I have to say that I never would have done it without this blog, so thank you, MYWTM readers! Although my viewing spot was clearly not ideal, I was able to see everything except for the trumpeters on the roof of the train station, and that totally worked for me. I would definitely recommend the Procession to everyone. The joined voices of the choir just blew me away.

Main Street

Shelby’s 10 Worst Christmas Songs: #8–Spanish Edition

13 Comments Posted by on December 4, 2011

#8: Feliz Navidad

Now let me start out by saying that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Feliz Navidad. It’s a decent song. Here’s your obligatory video, although I will warn you that Jose Feliciano is not looking too great here.

 

Yeah, I’m thinking the years haven’t been as kind as they could be.

But anyway, I don’t hate the song. What I hate is the fact that it has become the sole representation of the entire Spanish language at Christmas. It’s like whenever someone playing Christmas music decides they want to be multi-cultural, they pull out Feliz Navidad (and then pat themselves on the back for including a song in another language!) (not counting German). Never mind that there are more words in English than in Spanish. Or that it’s mind-numbingly repetitive (and this is coming from the person who doesn’t mind It’s A Small World). Nope, when it comes to Christmas Diversity, you’re talking Feliz Navidad.

There are millions of people in this world who speak Spanish. They come from hundreds of national, regional, and cultural backgrounds. Most of them celebrate Christmas. And yet the ONLY song we can come up with to represent ALL Spanish-speakers is Feliz Navidad??? SURELY somewhere among these vibrant and rich cultures, there’s a traditional song we can add to our holiday repertoire and give Feliz Navidad a well-earned retirement.

Look, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart just as much as the next guy, but it wouldn’t kill us to branch out a little.

(“Mamacita, Donde Esta Santa Claus” doesn’t count)

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Shelby’s 10 Worst Christmas Songs: #9

11 Comments Posted by on December 3, 2011

#9. Jingle Bells by the Singing Dogs

Okay, so this gimmick song was kind of cute and maybe kind of funny the first time you heard it, but hundreds of play hours later, it’s neither cute nor funny. I did a little research to see how the singing dogs came about and was shocked to find out that it was recorded in 1955. NINETEEN FIFTY-FIVE, PEOPLE!!! Apparently it achieved a renaissance when it was re-released in 1971, and, for some godawful reason, has been around ever since.

I picked that particular video because of the fine looking hounds in the picture, which is its single redeeming quality. We’re real hound lovers here.

Anyway, there’s a very interesting article about the Singing Dogs in The Atlantic, and the fact that these stupid barking dogs get their own article in The Atlantic is a bit disturbing to me. Apparently the Singing Dogs represented some kind of massive breakthrough in recording technology. Which is fine, I guess, except if you’re going to come up with a massive breakthrough, why on earth would you make that breakthrough via a Christmas song sung by dogs? Because if that were me, I’d like to have a little something more–sophisticated and less annoying as my legacy.

And according to the Atlantic article, two different polls came up with the Singing Dogs as #1 most hated Christmas song in 2007. So why do people keep playing it? WHY??? It’s like when you’re at the family Christmas dinner and that creepy uncle, who thinks he has a good sense of humor but really doesn’t, has too much to drink and decides he’s going to crack everyone up by playing the funniest Christmas song ever recorded (“you HAVE to hear this one!!”), the singing dogs, completely forgetting that 1) he gets drunk and does this every year, and 2) it’s not a funny song.

I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of cat version out there too, but if you know the names or locations of such songs, please don’t link them. I’ve only got 8 more slots to fill on my 10 Worst, and I don’t want animals to dominate the competition. Thanks.

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