Holidays Around the World: France

In France, Christmas decorations of every kind fill all the shops, baraques (booths), and boulevards. The children all eagerly await le Pere Noel (Father Christmas) on Christmas Eve. They set out shoes around the house in the hopes that he will fill them with all sorts of goodies. After Midnight Mass, everyone enjoys a feast called le reveillon and a delicious chocolate Yule log shaped dessert called Buche de Noel.

At the France pavilion, you can enjoy Pere Noel as he shares the joy of the Christmas season through a letter from a child. So sweet!!

You can get a Buche de Noel au Chocolat at the Les Halles Boulangerie-Patisserie. You can also enjoy a Gloace a la cannel et noix de Pecan caramelizes (cinnamon ice cream and caramelized pecans) at the L'Artisan des Glaces! As delicious as these both sound, we unfortunately didn't get to try either :(
But here is a picture of the cinnamon ice cream from Disney Food Blog for your viewing pleasure!

The Plume et Palette and La Signature stores both featured special holiday fragrances.

And look at this cute stamp with the Eiffel Tower on the ornament!! I love it!

Next stop is Morocco! Be sure and check back soon!

Another Disney trip?!! Yes!! One week to go!!!

Ean and I are SO excited to get to go on another Disney trip together!! Neither of us have ever been to the Flower and Garden festival, so we are totally pumped for this trip!! (Actually, we're totally pumped for all the trips… lol!)

I'm leaving on Friday to go to an It Works training event in Ohio on Saturday. So I'm a little stressed because I have even LESS time to get things prepared before the Disney trip! But, this event is going to be SO GOOD for my business, so I can't stress TOO much.

This week's list of to-do's includes:

• Finish the last few loads of laundry (we got started earlier this time!)
• Pack!!! (I wanna be packed for Disney before I leave for Ohio)
• Pay off the final balance
• Get all the checks in the bank
• Pay all our bills (they're ALL due the week we're away!!)
• Clean the bathrooms
• Pick up the clutter in the office
• Purchase our snack food
• Reserve FastPasses

Well, that's not so much!! I think I can handle all this! Now that I work from home with both my It Works business, and my Open Chord stuff, I can get chores done WHILE I'm working!! How great is that?! What a blessing!!!

Holidays Around the World: United Kingdom

If you know me, you know that the United Kingdom pavilion is my absolute favorite. I HAVE to go in all the shops every single time we visit Disney, even though I've seen the same exact merchandise inside a million times. But I have to, because I love it so much.

My favorite shop, The Tea Caddy, had my favorite Christmas tea from Twinnings. If I didn't already have more boxes than I could drink, you know I would have bought more. Their display of Christmas teas and accessories was selling fast. When we came back by about an hour later, a team of cast members were rushing to make a display of non-Christmas things on the empty table because they had quickly sold out of all their special holiday merchandise!

Father Christmas was in the back providing a fun and entertaining show for everyone. We sang traditional Christmas carols with him and learned a little bit about Christmas in the UK. We actually stayed for the whole show because we were standing in the front, and we were having a really good time!

Cute girl helping out with the show!

Did you know that the tradition of Christmas cards began in the United Kingdom? So did the tradition of mistletoe! So cool!

At the UK Beer Cart, you could get Hot Applejack Cider. Doesn't that sound amazing?! It is mulled hot cider with whiskey and a blend of seasonal spices. Mmmmm! If it wasn't sooooo hot in Florida, this would have been perfect! Back in Tennessee, I would probably enjoy this drink daily! Haha!

I love the cute UK stamp. How cute is it?!

Next stop is France, so stay tuned!!

Holidays Around the World: Canada

I always get really excited when we are in the Canadian pavilion of the World Showcase because the shopping area is just so beautiful! I don't know, it just really makes me happy!

The Northwest Mercantile had some cute Hatley sleepwear for the holidays!

In Canada, you can explore the holiday customs on a musical tour of the Great White North with the Canadian Holiday Voyageurs! We only caught a little bit of their show one day. We, unfortunately, were trying to see like 6 shows in 30 minutes, and they all started within 5 minutes of each other, so we had to continue running around the world. That's what happens when you wait until the last day to see all the shows. Oops! Hehe!

They had their special holiday food at the Popcorn in Canada stand. It was a Pecan Maple Bark. How good does that sound?! Unfortunately, we didn't get to try it. But here is a great picture of it from my most favorite site ever, Disney Food Blog!

Pecan Maple Bark from Disney Food Blog <3 td="">

I love reading the little scrolls with some Holiday traditions listed out. Canada shares some of the same traditions as we do in the US, but they also have other cool traditions! In some Canadian homes, Santa will get the help of little devilish creatures called Belsnicklers to determine whether children have been naughty or nice. If Belsnicklers enter the home, that means the children have been naughty, and they go in to cause mischief!

Canada's cute little stamp in my book was a little ornament with a maple leaf. So Canadian!

I'm excited to keep sharing these adventures with you! The United Kingdom is up next!