Ohs Hit

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• Making an ingredients list for dinner tonight
• Thawing ground turkey
• Gathering and dropping clothing that I never wear off at a clothing donation box
• Visiting my bank to get a timeline on my car title (it's being sent to the DMV and I'm supposed to get a notice when it's there)
• Driving to Macy's to look for a coat and scarf (success, but at the Burlington next door!)
• Stopping at World Market and Target for stocking stuffers for Jameson
• Home for lunch
• Grocery store for the ingredients for dinner
• Making the salad and shaping the meatballs for tonight
• Receiving and wrapping one of Jameson's presents
• Recruiting Josh (Key 2), who is still out on tour in Dallas, to buy holiday-discounted BATB merch for me :)
• Cooking dinner

I'd meant to practice too but there wasn't time because shopping took so long. Well, standing in line is what took so long. At Macy's they only had puff coats (which are inappropriate for a tux concert) and no scarves. I almost skipped going to Burlington because I am burnt out on shopping, but convinced myself. And lo, they had ONE black peacoat in the whole place, and it was a medium..and only $20!! (I really did check everywhere including ALL sizes of coats because people love to put things back in the wrong place. There really was only the ONE black peacoat in the whole store.)

Truth be told I've no idea if I can get away with wearing it on stage, but figure the worst they can do is say, "Hey, take that off!"
Plus there are plenty of times where a nice black coat (without a show logo on it for heavens sake) comes in handy.

Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs with side salad and garlic bread. It turned out all right, but I made two mistakes: I overcooked the meatballs and they were a bit dry, and I spread the garlic butter too thin so the bread was not as flavorful as we would've liked. Lessons that I hope to remember for the future. Jameson did not complain one bit. I doubt he's had a home-cooked meal since I was home in October.

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THURSDAY

Jameson was up at 7:30am and so was I. I had coffee while he had breakfast, and once he was out the door I had breakfast and did my damnedest to complete Houston Foodie Finds, which should have been done ages ago. I didn't finish before the dryer vent cleaning guy got here, but should be able to finish by tomorrow.

Dryer Vent Guy was here to clean our dryer vent, which has not been serviced since we got the dryer (6 years ago.) As usual with contractors, the estimate started at $140 and went to $320 and then with tax and tip magically became $480. Happy Holidays. But he did pull a big fat wad of lint out of the dryer so I guess it's better than the house catching on fire while I'm gone.


After he left I practiced bass trombone and the small tenor, only about 30 minutes but better than nothing. Ate lunch and made the dough for stained glass cookies to chill overnight. I'd meant to hit Walmart for final stocking stuffers for Jameson, but couldn't dredge up the motivation. I don't know what it is about this year, but I am feeling very demotivated about the holidays in general. Not sure why, it's not like I have to work full time during them or anything right now, I should have plenty of energy to put toward all sorts of things. But I'm just not feeling it. It feels like while I was on tour a mountain of things piled up to address, and making sure to tackle all of those things before I leave again, while simultaneously trying to give the attention and care that people expect on the holidays is just, it feels very overwhelming this time. Maybe I just need to change my attitude.

With this in mind, after cleaning up my cookie dough mess I took about an hour to just sit still and close my eyes. Not sure if it helped but I had to try SOMETHING to recharge.

Around 4pm I drove out to Jameson's workplace, which I am getting to see for the first time!! No pictures because people were working and I'm not sure which parts I saw were pubic-access or not. He showed me the rehearsal rooms, break room, conference rooms, creative development room, and of course his office and his coworkers' offices. There was VERY cool theming in many of the rooms, for example one conference room had a Toy Story Pizza Planet theme, and the elevator lobby had an Incredibles theme. Seeing where Jameson gets to work, and displays of talent and creativity and what power Disney has to develop concepts tailored around the people and businesses who seek their Events services, was amazing.

I say it about every five minutes but I am SO PROUD of Jameson!! And he really does love working here, which is the best of all :)

From there we drove separately to Magic Kingdom, keeping close so we could park near each other.
It was very crowded at the entrance because the regular crowd was being shuttled out while the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party (MVMCP) event folks were being shuttled in. Therefore I didn't take a pic of Main Street USA all lit up while the "snoap" sifted down, creating a magical and festive scene.

(photo courtesy @disney_photograshih)

The tree:


We were hungry, but had arrived early and wanted to wait until the food stalls had switched over to their holiday menus. We entered the park and received a wristband, commemorative ornament, and a peppermint marshmallow to start our festive fun :) The marshmallow was shockingly good, better than we expected!

To kill time we just strolled around and jumped into ride queues when we saw the wait time was low. This was good timing for this activity since most people were leaving the park. We rode Winnie the Pooh, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates of the Caribbean (POTC) in quick succession, and there went the 45 minutes we needed to get festive food!

Jameson didn't have any preference, so I chose Golden Oak Outpost for us. They had a festive version of their usual chicken tenders, served with cranberry sage BBQ sauce and sweet potato fries. It was steaming hot and very good! Jameson also got a gingerbread Coke which was "ok," the gingerbread flavor was not very strong.


I think after this we scrounged around for the free treats! We found a frosted buttercream + cocoa one in Frontierland, a red velvet + apple cider option in another area (I forget where that was, near POTC I think), and a pretzel chocolate chip cookie + egg nog at Gaston's Tavern. I don't usually do egg nog but this was just a small 3-4oz cup so I enjoyed it with a Lactaid :) They also doubled down on our cookies there because crowds were light. Woot!

Along the way we saw the second half of one of the castle shows, where they were singing Muppet Christmas Carol songs and all the characters were dancing on stage as the castle glowed with festive colors. Magical!


A bit later we were trying to get to our Beak & Barrel reservation but were thwarted by the parade...but it was very cool to see the dancers, toy soldiers, reindeer, and Christmas-dressed characters waving from the floats! Christmas Belle and the Beast were prominent at the front of the castle float. We were pretty far back but I got one good pic of the Beast anyway.


We made our reservation right on time. Beak & Barrel is the new POTC-themed bar located near the ride. The inside has INCREDIBLE theming, including lots of interactive bits like a bottled ship battle and a snarky parrot who comes out to squawk at guests from time to time. (You can google "inside Beak & Barrel" to see these things and more)

The decor alone (and lighting!) was awesome. Some fliers on the wall:


The back of the bar was in the shape of a giant skull. Can you see it?


Jameson got to see part of the bottled ship battle while I stayed at the bar to hold our place. Later on the staff started screaming about a "gale" or something, then the lighting changed to simulate a storm with lightning and wind (and even a few light splashes of water!) One of the bartenders threw me a chain and together we dramatically acted out some sort of "battening down the hatches" routine, or perhaps one of us was saving the other from going overboard? Hard to tell but it was hilarious and fun! Jameson managed to catch the tail end of this interaction as the squall was ending :P


After that the fireworks were starting. The tourists rushed to Main Street USA while the locals dove for the exit, lol. As we were leaving we admired the Mickey's Christmas Carol window displays outside Main Street Emporium. And I waved goodbye to "my" mailbox, which is a twin of the one at EPCOT and was made near my hometown.

We rode the ferry back so we could stand on the top level and watch the fireworks. We reflected together on what an amazing year 2025 has been for us, mostly because we've worked for Disney. We marveled at the special experiences we'd had tonight, and how it was the little things (the interactions at Beak & Barrel; the cast member letting us take the Lightning Lane when she didn't have to) that REALLY made the night special, and how we wanted to be the people to provide that special moment for others...and how all of us doing that, and being empowered and encouraged to do that by our employer, is a big reason why people love Disney. Because magical moments really ARE created through the littlest interactions...and all of us can make those happen!

Anyway, we drove home and had a look at our cookie haul. Not bad! Keeping in mind that we've already got a mountain of cookies from our neighbors, Jameson's mom, my sister, plus I'm baking some this weekend too! We don't need more! The ornament is adorable, too bad we don't have a tree this year.


Such a fun night out with my favorite person :)

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Friday: A "free" day. Jameson is working from home. I'll likely use it to bake cookies and practice. It's also the anniversary of the day I received the offer to join Beauty and the Beast, so I might reflect a little on that.

Saturday and Sunday: Morning and afternoon are free, but at night I've got Candlelight with Brendan Fraser as narrator! Nervous but looking forward to it!