Joy and I spent Christmas Day by ourselves after the long day before at Disneyland. We reached out to friends about getting dim sum but without anyone able to meet up with drove out to Arcadia for some Xiao Long Baos at Din Tai Fung. We weren’t the only ones thinking that as we were faced with an hour and half wait for a table and we braved out the hunger until we got seated. We feasted on a bunch of soup dumplings, fried rice and chicken soup and it was well worth it.

After lunch i needed to walk off some of the food and decided to check out the Santee Alley to hang out with the Mexicans. Not many places are open on Christmas and itt was pretty busy. Ireally got tempted on bringing home a bunny, but of course we didn’t. It felt like any other back alley shopping area around the world with lots of fake movies, purses, and street vendors selling fruits and corn.

In the evening we enjoyed a quiet night at home watching Bourne Legacy and enjoy a home made short-rib stew with some stove-top stuffing. I really made up the recipe in my head and happy it came out really well, especially the next day when it had time to develop more flavor.

Christmas time in my family usually doesn’t involve much, but this year we decided with a new family member in Kaylee Jane it was time to start a new tradition of going to Disneyland on Christmas Eve. From my days at working at the park i knew that it was actually the best day to do go during the two weeks between Christmas and New Years.

There was rain in the forecast but we bundled up, brought the rain shield for the stroller and headed out early in the morning. We started off at Disney’s California Adventure so that Nina could see the new Carsland and ride on the Radiator Springs Racer. Kaylee’s frist ride was Flik’s Flyers which seemed to enjoy, unlike my mom who got a little dizzy.

Around noon we headed over to Disneyland when it started to rain, and rain pretty hard for a good 20 minutes. We had to eat our corn dogs in the rain, but we powered through until the sun came back out. Kaylee in the process decided to take her afternoon nap and so we circled around the park a few times until she woke up in time to go on Finding Nemo which she enjoy up until it went into the cave and then all hell broke loose. She cried and cried and felt so bad for everyone else in the submarine.

We actually were able to go on a lot of rides even with the kid in tow. The crazy thing was that we were able to stay in the park all the way through the fireworks and the last showing of Fantasmic! It was a very fun time and can’t wait for next year.