Bedtime? Nah!!!

I’ve held back my idea from the boys – knowing what they’d say – and waited to whisper it to Becky first. “I have a crazy idea. What would you think of the boys and I going out to the Magic Kingdom now?”

Her answer: “You go right ahead.”

I interpret her inflection, based upon seventeen years of marriage, to mean “I’m not going to raise any objection, but I agree that you’re crazy, and you’ll be doing it by yourself, because I’m staying here and going to bed!” It’s amazing how those four words can mean so much.

I then ask Brandon and Benjamin if they’d like to take the monorail to the Magic Kingdom and ride something. “Now!?” they say, wide-eyed, looking to their mom instinctively to see if she (the rational parent) is okay with this. She is! And suddenly the two boys are hopping around the room in excitement.

“Stitch’s Great Escape?” Benjamin asks. Sure, we can try – that’s the great thing about going there on our own. We can ride things that the others might not be as interested in.

Once the boys have put their shoes back on, we promise their mom not to be out “too late” (lots of room for interpretation there!) and head out. We cross into the Great House, head upstairs, and out to the monorail platform. Just doing this much at night is fun!

There something extra-special about circling the Seven Seas Lagoon in the dark. It's a vast patch of black outlined by the resorts, TTC, and Magic Kingdom, with various little lights on the many boats moving across its surface. What a beautiful night.

We arrive at the Magic Kingdom at 9:30 and head for the gate. Yay! We’re in!

We walk under the train station and out into Town Square. Oh, wow, this place looks awesome with the holiday decorations, the tree, tinsel, and lights, with Christmas music still playing!

The boys are ready to charge ahead, but I detour them into “Le Chapeau” to check for hats. I’d like to get one as a souvenir, and this is where I found my light-up Mickey “fireworks” hat on the 2003 trip.

All three of us find hats that we are kind-of, sort-of interested in, but not real enthusiastic about, so we put off any purchase at this point. Out to Main Street!

We walk up the street towards Cinderella Castle, which is absolutely gorgeous, completely covered in “ice” lights. I’d seen pictures – as I mentioned yesterday (was it just yesterday we were flying here?), I have a picture of it as the wallpaper on my cell phone – but they pale in comparison to the real thing. The lights slowly pulse and twinkle. It is breathtaking.

Apart from the slightly-out-of-place comfortable air temperature, all we need to make this holiday wonderland feeling complete is… snow!

It is snowing on Main Street. Snowing!

I love Disney.