Balsam Hill projectile vomits Christmas decorations throughout Main Street, characters’ homes, and office locations.
Love interest characters meet each other by chance, a small spark flies
There is some sort of problem to solve
Characters grow closer together and have many awkward almost kiss moments ruined by a child, or some other annoying character.
There is some huge misunderstanding because one character doesn’t have the full context of the situation because they overheard a piece of a phone call and takes it in the worst way possible without any followup questions.
Character leaves town
Character gets the rest of the information
Character shows up at the precise moment when things seem the bleakest.
Elf – There is a debate if Will Ferrel is funny or not. I think he’s probably the funniest in this movie and peaked here.
Christmas Vacation – Been watching this every year since 1990. I didn’t see it the first year it was out because all my friends went to the movies and didn’t bother inviting me. I am no longer friends with that “ringleader” for several reasons.
Die Hard – Saw this when I was a kid and I still watch it every year. Opening gifts and shouting “Yippee Ki Yay MF’er” makes for an interesting morning.
Lethal Weapon – Another Holiday favorite, who doesn’t enjoy Gary Busey’s wrist roasting on an open fire.
Iron Man 3 – I was pumped when I saw Holiday Trees in this movie. Also lots of roasting on open fire references as well as the secret Santa for the barn lab at the end (spoiler)
Shazam! The gift of superpowers and a new family makes it a holiday hit!
Jurassic World The ultimate Christmas Vacation where the zoo animals feast upon you.
Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, Harry Potter – While not technically Christmas movies they did come out at Christmas time so it counts. The same goes for Star Wars The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker.
The Bourne Identity – Follow Jason as he goes on a quest to remember where he hid the Christmas presents.
Find a good hiding spot to get away from the crowds
Well, the title can be misleading, as a recovering introvert, you will be exposed to more people than you will ever experience in your entire existence. You will have to set aside your need for quiet, conformity, and perfectionism. This will be messy, but here are my best tips.
I don’t care how much it costs, don’t be a cheap wad. Staying on property is worth every penny. You get a fantastic themed room, great bus service, and free parking if you get tired of someone’s butt in your face after you’ve raced to get a seat on the transport. I recommend booking a Skyliner resort as well. Just don’t stay until the park closes, otherwise, you will be waiting in one of those cattle corrals for over an hour.
Take a small bag, but only one.
Dads, haul the bag through security and let your family browse the overpriced items near the entrance. It’s a bad idea to have everyone bring a bag. Your wife will thank you for leaving her purse in the car. I use a small sling pack that can hold tons of stuff. What to put in the bag? Keep reading. You don’t need much.
Bring a refillable water bottle.
Preferably one that is vacuum sealed so it keeps ice all day. Most places will give you ice and you can fill up your bottle at any number of water fountains.
Bring sunscreen
Just a small refillable applicator and face stick. You will get burned in more than one way
Camera with zoom.
Preferably an SLR with longer optical zoom. It’s a little extra weight, but worth the pain because of the quality of the photos. The photographers there will even use your fancy pants camera because they appreciate your effort. Plus you can get photo tips from them as well. Just don’t take that big camera every day, just on those days when you plan out your iconic photos. If you can get a deal on the Disney photo pass, DO IT, I regret not just forking over the dough and getting all those great shots.
Enjoy the park food
Pack only a few snacks for when you or your family gets hangry. Beef Jerky, Slim Jims, Nuts, Granola bars something with protein, stuff that won’t melt. Enjoy the food in the park as much as you can. Again don’t be cheap, eat and enjoy the park food. Book a nice sit-down restaurant too.
Lightening Lanes
No brainer, get it for later in the day and head for the rides you want first as soon as the ropes drop. For instance, hit the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train or Tron first (Magic Kingdom) and then use your lightening lane later. Or just visit all the other rides while people pile on the most popular ones. You can book your LLs 7 days before your trip. You’ve already spent so much money what’s a few dollars more?
Stay at least 3 days
Spend at least an entire day at each park, but 3 will do. Most people skimp on the Animal Kingdom, but there is plenty to do. It’s not all about thrill rides. Thrill your brain and learn some stuff. Also, try to visit during Christmas time, the Magic Kingdom is way better when all the sights, sounds, and music of Christmas are up and running.
Get the park hopper option
We go to the Magic Kingdom every evening after we’ve exhausted our time at other parks. There is nothing quite like the Magic Kingdom at night.
Take care of your feet!
I can’t stress this enough, you will be walking miles per day. My personal best is 14 miles in a single day. Wear proper fitting and breathable shoes. Wear anti-friction socks and let them air out when you get back to the hotel. I managed to remain blister-free on my last two trips. Leave the flip-flop and slides at the hotel for the pool.
Also, don’t ride the haunted mansion first if you have small children.
For as long as I’ve had money and ears I’ve been purchasing music. I started with cassette tapes in the 80s and moved on to CDs in the 90s followed by iTunes in the 00s. Now I have the AppleOne subscription where I can upload all my CD-rips and enjoy endless tunes connected to Apple Music.
Music (Yes)
I have a disappearing collection of CDs as they have all been put into Apple lossless format. I rarely purchase a physical CD anymore unless I sign up for a Kickstarter campaign and get the artist to sign it.
I purchase soundtracks for my favorite movies and have the physical CD and the auto-rip from Amazon. Once I subscribed to Apple One, and for only $39 a month, my family and I can listen to anything we want with our own playlists.
Books (Maybe)
I’m slowly removing all my physical books from my shelf and replacing them with their digital counterpart. I’ll keep a few on the shelf because I could never part with them. My Grandmother’s study bible and hymnal, my personal bible collection, and a few Star Wars books. But other than that I have everything on my Kindle. Let’s hope Amazon doesn’t close its virtual doors anytime soon.
Movies (No)
I still own many movies, I have VHS, DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K discs. I also own the original non-special edition Star Wars films on Laserdisc (and a Laserdisc player). Physical media is superior because they don’t buffer like streaming services. You get the highest quality picture and sound. They also don’t disappear from the platform every few months.
It’s a neat idea to have all your media in the cloud, it would put those time-life CD infomercials out of business because you can dig in the virtual crates and find all your favorites, all for the easy payment of $9.99 a month.
The only option I have for the internet is Spectrum. To get a good deal I have to make the business and residential services compete with each other.
After getting locked into a “deal” for spectrum business class. They started offering lower rates and faster speeds. After several attempts, they offered to raise my rate to $349 a month rather than the $100 I’m paying now. Not that good of a deal in my opinion.
So I decided to sign up for residential service at a lower rate and faster speed. But now the tech for the business class came by and disconnected me on the street. They truly are separate entities because they don’t check to see if you signed up for another service, they just cut the cord. I called to see if they would come to fix their mistake and they said since I’m a residential customer they wouldn’t touch the line. I said it didn’t stop you from disconnecting my residential a few hours ago.
So now I’m at the mercy of Spectrum. The sad thing is if you are a business customer they will fix your problem within 4 hours, but now that I’m a lowly residential customer I have to wait for the first available appointment. Even though it’s their error.
Fast forward a year, and I spent about a half hour today trying to give Spectrum my money for cable TV. The deal kept getting worse. By the time my base package was quoted, it was $160 for broadcast channels (no DVR) and internet. My current promotion ended and it was now $140 for both, which was up from $110 the previous month. So I ended up dropping cable and now only paying $60 for the internet. Now guess what’s showing in my newsfeed? Ads for Sling, Dish, and DirecTV. I will probably go with Sling since it works with AppleTV. Thankfully, AT&T Fiber is coming soon.
After about a month, Sirius XM gets old and repeaty. I took a trip to the grocery store and heard the long version of the Humpty Dance on Rock the Bells Classic Hip Hop. Once I got tired of the endless loop, I flipped over to 90s on 9 where the Humpty Dance was just beginning. Also, you can only hear Downtown Julie Brown so many times.
You will get your three-month preview whenever you get a new car, but that’s as far as you should go. One time, I made the mistake of getting the 6-month extension for $29 ($36 after fees), so I was stuck hearing Humpty Hump for a few more months. By the way, Sirius XM doesn’t work well if there are trees around or you pull into a gas station. The signal will go out because you need a line of sight to the satellite. Once your free trial is up I suggest Apple Music if you are an iPhone user. That way, you can put Humpty on repeat to your heart’s desire.
It sounds like a contradictory non-sensible statement but I’m talking about the little card that flies out of a magazine when you thumb through the pages. These are the equivalent of pop-up ads on websites. Now that add blockers are basically useless you have to go back to print media to get your news, but now you have to deal with Geico shoving a card within each page.
Whenever I get a new magazine, which is rare these days. I will take it directly to the garbage can with the widest opening. I shake the magazine until all the cards fall out and then enjoy the magazine as it was intended. You know, a few articles and embedded ads.
The park will be closed and you won’t be able to get through the gates, Well you probably could, but you would go to jail. Not Disney jail, but a real jail, where the mice bite. However, if you are on the property then you are safe. Disney Resorts are made to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. They will treat you like royalty and since they are their own municipality, you will have power sooner. However, if they stay open during a hurricane you will have little wait times because people will cancel their vacations.
When it’s hot
You will sweat profusely and you will get dehydrated if you don’t buy the $4 bottles of water. Don’t drink the soda and beer or you will dehydrate faster. And be broker faster
When there are numerous amount of people there
Holidays and weekends are the worst, and holiday weekends are a no-brainer to stay away.
When you just bought new shoes
That is unless you like blisters on your feet. Never take a brand new pair of shoes into the park. Don’t buy a brand new pair of waterproof timberland boots for your July trip. Your boots will be filled with pain and suffering.
When a new ride is open
Well, it might be a good time to visit other areas of the parks except for Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, Tron Lightcycle Run, or Peter Pan’s Flight. Make sure to get a virtual queue
No one really knows the best time to visit
There is no slow season no matter what anyone tells you. If you are going to go, just do it and enjoy your time. Be patient with people because 95% of people are not self aware and will bump into you. If someone says they got on all the rides with no waiting they are lying, and you shouldn’t be friends with liars.
I’ve noticed an uptick in the trend to bring back older movies from the 70s, 80s, and 90s to local theaters. I think it’s a great idea, but unnecessary in our day and age.
I can see the appeal. You can watch an old movie on a large screen with high-quality audio. It’s easy to do now because there are no unwieldy film reels to deal with. All the movies are delivered over the internet or on hard disk drives that basically load into a fancy digital projector. Kinda irks me when they splash the Sony 4K logo before a movie. Really? You are proud that your resolution is lower than celluloid?
The real reason movies are coming back out is because Hollywood is out of ideas. They’ve rebooted every movie franchise they can think of. They’ve created movies based on video and board games. The only untapped market is the cereal industry. I’d pay to see a movie where Captain Crunch fights Count Chocula, Franken, and Boo Berry like Van Helsing.
Regal Premium Experience has been out for a while, and in my opinion, is worth the extra price if you must see the latest hot garbage from Hollywood. You get a comfortable seat, a huge screen, and super loud audio with many speakers. I used to go for the 3D version but have since switched to 2D only because the picture is much sharper. They could make it even more premiumer if they had some way to keep the movie commentators quiet. Maybe some sort of EMP to disable all cell phones so that we are not blinded by blue screen light as we are engrossed in a Xenomorph chomping its way out of a human body cavity.
Of course at my house, I have a pretty large screen, super loud surround speakers, and all the popcorn I want to eat. I can pause the movie anytime I want so no one interrupts the Xenomorph cavity carnage.
For as long as I’ve had money and ears I’ve been purchasing music. I started with cassette tapes in the 80s and moved on to CDs in the 90s followed by iTunes in the 00s. Now I have the AppleOne subscription where I can upload all my CD-rips and enjoy endless tunes connected to Apple Music.
It sounds like a contradictory non-sensible statement but I’m talking about the little card that flies out of a magazine when you thumb through the pages. These are the equivalent of pop-up ads on websites. Now that add blockers are basically useless you have to go back to print media to get your news, but now you have to deal with Geico shoving a card within each page.
Daily Irritant 
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