Candlelight

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is performing in Candlelight at Disneyland. Of course we all know how much I love Disneyland, but it is more than that for me. I love to sing, and singing with a 1,000 voice choir is powerful. On top of that we perform with the Disneyland Orchestra, fanfare Trumpeters, and the hand bell choir. I don't know if you have ever experienced singing with an orchestra before, but it is pretty amazing. It is a spiritual experience. The program is about the birth and life of Christ and they get a celebrity narrator to read passages of scripture that go along with what we are singing. This year the guest narrator was John Stamos (Uncle Jessie from full house). He was fun, but I think out of the 12 years that I have been participating in this program, my favorite narrator has been Dick Van Dyke who they got for Disneyland's 50th anniversary. This year however was Candlelight's 50th anniversary! I learned that Walt Disney put together Candlelight as a Christmas Card for the community to say thank you. Not only that, but Walt Disney put in his will that Candlelight would be continued every December for as long as Disneyland was running. So it is because Walt Disney put it in his will that we continue to celebrate Christ at Disneyland. For how the world is going... I doubt it would still be going if it were not for that. But the fact is, people love this program, not just the people that perform in it, but thousands of people come to watch it every year... as we process down mainstreet singing carols, you see people singing a long and some are even crying. It is truely a unique and special experience and that I really love. Hence the fact that I go home to Santa Barbara from Utah just for the weekend to be a part of it. And I will continue to do so for as long as I am able to. A little bonus is that they let us go into the park and play after the performances and they also give us two free tickets to go back anytime during the year. Another bonus for me is that my mom and sister Jamie love being a part of the program as much as I do, so I get to share this special experience every year with family. Anyway... as you can tell, I love it and it always starts off the Christmas season for me, so I thought I would share it with you.