November passed in a blur of good intentions and best laid plans as far as Christmas prep went, as well as fun travel and the beginnings of winter fun. I dusted off my GCSE art skills and created Lino print Christmas cards (pictured above), they were very much a reminder to trust the process and that sometimes things do not always come out how you want but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good!

The highlight of November was definitely the trip to Disneyland Paris with Kathryn. It was my first time at DLP and it was a truly magical experience. It took a full day to adjust to it being Christmas absolutely everywhere, even the hotel had country and western Christmas music playing. DLP is definitely a different experience to Florida and the rides, whilst less, were really next level.

Having ridden Big Thunder Mountain in California and it being mega chill, I was not expecting the DLP version of this ride to go as hard as it did but wow, it did. I think a 3am start on the first day plus BTM was possibly just too much for my body to process in a single day. It was definitely one of my favourite rides from the trip and we rode it multiple times.

Kathryn and I of course have matching Pirates of the Caribbean spirit jerseys, which actually came from Florida because they were way cuter than the DLP ones. So we rocked matching jerseys on our first full day and enjoyed every minute of it. The pirates ride at DLP is different to the Florida one, it is longer with 2 drops and some of it is in French! I actually found that my listening French listening skills really came in clutch on this trip, although I am aware that the Disney French was probably at a primary school level.

This is Donald, the Disney duck. He stood here and posed for me for several minutes.

Disney really know how to manufacture a magical moment, they used bubbles as snow multiple times a day as well as lights and music and it was absolutely amazing. At one point, Kathryn and I exited a shop on Main Street into a big bubble snow storm and swelling festive music and lights and I got so excited that I shouted ‘Oh my god its snowing’ and then cried.

This is not the most flattering picture but it really captures the joy and excitement we had waiting for the parade. I had never really been a big parade person but after we stood on a wall and waved at Santa and he waved back we knew we needed to be in a front row somewhere for it. We ended up doing 2 parades in one day and wow were they amazing. The first one (anticipation for it to begin pictured above) was during a rainy mid afternoon and we watched princesses, Mickey, Minnie, the pooh gang and Santas peeps dance / float past to an absolute banger of a parade song. We danced and waved and cheered and it was incredible and we honestly didn’t think it could get any better than that. Oh boy were we wrong, we watched the parade from the main square in the evening and in the dark so many things were lit up and it was completely different and wonderful.

We also went to a character breakfast which was absolute chaos but definitely satisfied my inner 4 year old. An important inclusion at this point is the picture of Kathryn looking exceptionally overwhelmed. She did have fun, I promise.

There are a thousand more pages I could write about our DLP trip but I will spare you from having to hear any more. Needless to say, it was epic.

The final instalment for November was my work’s trip to the Christmas markets. As you can see we are on the merry side of things by this stage, happily debating which Christmas songs were unexpected bangers. My suggestion was ‘Christmas Time‘ by the Darkness.

NB. Whilst Tony was not mentioned, he was present and had a very nice November