2013 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 23 – The Big Mouth Billy Bass Holiday Choir

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Posting this as close to Christmas as possible because I hate to spoil the surprise, but it was just too awesome not to include in this year’s advent blog and besides, most of the people on the list aren’t exactly ones to waste their time reading this thing anyways! 😉

They said that it couldn’t be done.

Well, more specifically, my wife said that it shouldn’t be done because apparently there’s just something about a guy spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on buying singing fish over the Internet that doesn’t exactly make for a thrilled wife … and yet after receiving a lackluster quantity of actual gift suggestions from the various family members who would ultimately receive said fish, I think you’ll agree that I basically didn’t have any other choice!

So after finding a couple of surprisingly helpful eBay sellers, soon I found myself the proud, albeit temporary owner of these little beauties…

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So to answer your inevitable questions:

  • Yes, I had them all sing at once.
  • No, it sadly wasn’t as cool as you might think … mostly because this model actually sings two different songs and thus there were always a least a couple of fish singing the wrong one.
  • No, I didn’t actually spend hundreds of dollars. It was more like hundred dollars – I think after shipping, they ended up costing me on average around $15 each.
  • Also, Singing Fish Pro-Tip – if you’re looking to buy bulk quantities of holiday-branded singing fish, do it in July when nobody cares about Christmas because after sellers see you grab the first few, that’s when they realize that they’re way undercharging for their Santa Hat-laden Bass.

Nonetheless, for the few precious hours that we had together before I had to start taking them back down off the wall again and packing them into separate boxes for holiday gift-giving in various states around the north and northeast, the holiday ballad(s) that they chose to serenade me with was nothing short of magical … like the Christmas songs that I hear in my dreams, sung by Big Mouth Billy Bass himself in his finest holiday attire.

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Best. Christmas. Ever. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

2013 Holiday Advent Blog – BONUS – Lego Holiday Village, Cramped Edition

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Normally I would’ve made a regular advent post about our ever-expanding Lego Holiday Village, and the new set that we got this year (thanks, Mom!) is actually pretty cool … but as you can see from the photos below, we’re sort of experiencing a few growing pains in Legoland and I’m a little peeved about the lack of space that we’ve got to work with at this point.

The problem is, the village is just getting too darned big, and although in its own right that’s actually pretty cool, from a logistical standpoint we simply didn’t have a good place to set everything up this year, so it ended up cramped on top of a pair of shelves in the family room and that was the best that we could do. The shelf that we used last year kind of got monopolized by Cleo’s stuff and other junk, and even that would’ve been too small with the latest additions.

So I’m not really sure what I want to do with it for next year … ideally we’re at the point where we need some kind of board to set it all up on – I know that I’ve seen other people do that with their holiday scenes, but the problem is that we just don’t have a good place in the house to put a big table or something without it sitting in the middle of the room for everybody to trip over! I thought about giving up some space for them to reside on my new Lego shelves, but then what do I do with whatever was already there during that time???

I’ll be soliciting proposals for the relocation of our quaint, holiday village to a larger venue in 2014.

P.S. As you can see that there’s a lot of stuff out in the town square at this point, I kind of hope that next year’s set ends up being another building of some sort – maybe a nice holiday chalet or something so that out of town guests have a place to crash when they come to visit for the holidays! 😉

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2013 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 22 – A Disney Holiday Getaway, Part 3

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So admittedly day #3 of our 3-day Disney getaway was a bit shorter than its predecessor, seeing as the pregnant wife was just about out of steam and as much as we both still had a lot that we wanted to see and do, we reluctantly agreed that it simply wasn’t in the cards this go around…

We took advantage of our hotel being in the Magic Kingdom proximity to hit up the holiday decorations around the monorail loop – I think my favorite was the gingerbread tree at the Contemporary because it was something new, whereas the gigantic gingerbread house at the Grand Floridian, while cool, was pretty much the same as it is every single year. We were a little disappointed at the Polynesian because they didn’t really have anything special, whereas in the past they usually have a variety of smaller gingerbread tiki huts on display!

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After making our rounds, we ended up at Kona for lunch, where we were happy to get seated right away despite not having a reservation or anything! In fact, the last two photos there aren’t really holiday-oriented at all, but simply to show how absolutely gorgeous the afternoon turned out to be … blue skies, frozen drinks (for me, anyways), and a nice, cool breeze to supplement our wandering holiday tour! 😉

2013 Holiday Advent Blog – BONUS – A Disney Holiday Getaway, Part 2 (cont’d)

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After paying homage to the amazing dancing spectacle that is the Osborne Lights, we grabbed some dinner and played a quick round of Toy Story Mania (and saw a service dog riding in one of the cars!) before jumping over to the Magic Kingdom to spend a couple more hours out and about before returning back to our hotel. We actually already caught part of the Christmas decor last month when they were first putting everything up, but it’s still fun … albeit very busy … once everything is all in place!

Unfortunately, we didn’t realize between us that Wishes is Holiday Wishes from here through the end of the year, so we were walking through Frontierland when the show started and ended up watching the rest from Liberty Square … which isn’t exactly ideal, but oh well. An unexpected highlight, on the other hand, was the holiday version of the Jungle Cruise, or the Jingle Cruise as they’re calling it – it’s pretty much the same cruise as before, but now it’s been sprinkled with plenty of holiday puns a plenty!

Just be sure to keep an eye out for Sandy Claws… 😯

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2013 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 21 – A Disney Holiday Getaway, Part 2

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After spending the bulk of the afternoon just laying around, napping and whatnot, we popped over to the Studios for a bit of holiday flare in the form of The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights!

I think if you twisted my arm, I’d have to say that seeing the lights is my all-time favorite Christmas-related thing to do at Disney World – I love the back story with Jennings Osborne striving to ever-impress his daughter, I love all of the minute details that I seem to discover more of every year, I love the snow that falls from the sky that I don’t have to worry about shoveling afterwards! It’s just an amazing presentation and we’ve missed out the last couple of years, so it was pretty much my #1 pick for this special holiday trip…

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2013 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 20 – A Disney Holiday Getaway, Part 1

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Reporting to you live from Disney’s Wilderness Lodge this evening where the wife and I will spend the weekend peeping out Christmas decorations around Disney World and whatnot. We’ve never stayed at this one before, although we’re both huge fans of Animal Kingdom Lodge, and so far I’m kind of digging the ambiance … especially with Christmas just around the corner and all! Very rustic, lots of wooded and animal-centric decor – in a way it kind of reminds me of back home, except with triple the temperature to where I can still walk around in shorts at midnight and feel perfectly comfortable… 😉

Did I mention that their Christmas wreaths have antlers in them??? Trying to keep my guard up while I’m out taking pictures – for all I know, I could run into Gaston around any corner!

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One last pic – this one of the super yummy peppermint cupcake that I’m enjoying while writing this here blog post! Life is sweet… 😉

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“Misunderstood”

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhwhnEe7CjE

Loved this ad, and I can kind of relate to it. Offers up a good point – don’t be so quick to write off the anti-social … you might be surprised to find that they’re doing a lot more than you think…

an opportunity for holiday kindness missed…

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Sometimes being an introvert can be a bad thing.

This evening while I was waiting in the checkout line at Walmart, there was a couple in front of me trying to pay for part of their groceries with food stamps … or SNAP, or whatever you call it. They had a bunch of printed certificates that covered specific items, but when the cashier went to process them, she pointed out that they had already expired.

The Mom ran out to the car to look for money or more certificates or something while the Dad stayed with their son who was just sitting in the cart, minding his own business. I had watched the Mom play with her son to keep him entertained for the last 20 minutes while we stood in line together, and they seemed like nice enough people. About 5 minutes later, the Dad left to go after her while the cashier watched the kid, but when both parents finally returned, they were grumbling to one another about not paying attention, and then the Mom walked off to get a cart to go put the extra items back that they couldn’t pay for.

While I watched all of this unfold, I imagined in my head offering to pay for it for them myself … in the spirit of the season and all … but instead I just stood there and politely waited until it was my turn to checkout, and said nothing. The guy even apologized for holding up the line, and I shrugged it off and said, “No problem…” but nothing more.

It wasn’t a lot of stuff – a couple of gallons of milk, some eggs, beans … couldn’t have been more than $20.

They didn’t even do the typical Walmart stereotype and just walk away, leaving all of that cold food for the cashier to deal with. While the Dad took their son and the rest of the food out to the car, the Mom headed back into the store to put  each of the items back where they had found them.

I wish I had spoken up and just offered to help.

I don’t know if I was worried about whether my offer would be well received, or if I was just nervous about the interaction in general. But even as they walked away and the cashier started to checkout my items, I instantly regretted my lack of action and wished that I could have turned back time and done it differently.

Next time it happens, I hope that I do.