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Family Memories

A Disney Local Perspective: Holiday Traditions Old and New

6 December 2018 by Suzannah Otis Leave a Comment

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There’s a special magic to blinking open your eyes from a long sleep and realizing it’s somehow both still dark and very bright out that morning – only to discover the reason for that is the windows and all outside are covered in snow. Tiny frozen stars etched onto the glass, snow glistening as it drapes over each tree branch and coats each pine needle. It was only yesterday you were stomping around in that very grass, crunching the fallen leaves under your feet releasing that earthy smell, combined with the crisp air that could only mean snow was on its way. There is nothing quite as magical as the blanket of freshly fallen snow, except maybe on Christmas morning…These are some of my fondest memories from growing up, along with, of course, the entire Christmas season and all it promised each year.

Being a December baby, it was always a time of surprises and never-ending wonder at the beautiful sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the season. My family would always wait to get our tree (real of course) till the weekend before my birthday, which is two weeks before Christmas every year. Decorating that tree was such a special tradition. Every ornament had a story, and we all had our favorites. Of course my mother had already been baking for weeks by that point, every family member, friend, and neighbor got a carefully packaged container of her famous Christmas cookies, wrapped in clear plastic and tied up with a red ribbon. She would store the dozens of them between sheets of wax paper in white 5 gallon tubs from the restaurant where my father was a M’aitre D’. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sneak quite a few back in the day. The Russian Tea cookies have always been my downfall (and my favorite).

Another favorite tradition was driving through the neighborhoods to see Christmas lights. For some reason, growing up, both my grandparents and our house only ever did white candles in our window at Christmastime. (I think my grandmother thought colored outdoor lights looked “tacky”?)  We had colored lights on the tree, candles in the window and a wreath on the door. No colorful C6 bulbs stapled to our rooftop or wrapped around our bushes. But what that austere decor made me do was appreciate everyone else’s lights all the more. Many towns in New England have a town square or green with big old trees, which are usually covered in lights, sometimes twinkling, sometimes not, including Watertown Square, which we would pass on the way to my grandparents house. The Boston Common in downtown Boston also did this with many of their trees, and we’d sometimes take a drive to the city just to see them, ending at the big tree outside the Prudential Center. I can still feel the cold vinyl of the backseat in the family car, as the dark winter night was suddenly lit with thousands of lights before my eyes.

Petee’s Hill in Sharon, Massachusetts

Of course I have other memories too; taking part in the Christmas pageant at school where I got to be an angel, the smell of the incense during holiday mass, and the opposite of extremes, watching all the holiday specials on tv, usually with a mug of hot cocoa and some of those famous Christmas cookies I mentioned above. Snow days off of school, walking up to the hill on the other side of our own town square and sledding down all day with friends till my socks were soaked and my toes and nose were frozen from cold. And I’m sure I’m not alone with these memories, and they probably still exist today for kids in New England towns or anywhere up north that gets snow. I know I’m not unique in that regard. By stark contrast to my current location, I never once visited Walt Disney World during the holidays as a child. Even when we moved to Ocala in 1985 and became annual passholders I did not experience a Disney Christmas, since we drove back up to Massachusetts to have the holidays with my grandparents. After college, I moved back to Florida from Massachusetts in 1995 to work at Walt Disney World, and finally experienced the holidays in the parks first hand, as a cast member on Main Street. U.S.A.

Which brings me to the purpose of my post today. If you asked any of my children to write about their holiday memories, they would have a very different answer, and not just because 25+ years separate our childhoods. Some parts would be similar; we still make cookies, we still watch those holiday specials (although I may be the only one that appreciates their vintage charm), I have managed to break the “only candles in the window” decorating rule, and of course we still drive around and look at lights, it’s just that our neighbors do a bit more decorating down here. In fact, there’s a castle down the street that really goes all out. All of my past memories and traditions are why, if I let myself pause long enough, seeing those icicle lights on Cinderella Castle brings me to tears. Because as many years of memories as I have riding in the backseat and looking at lights through the car window, I now have many more of myself and my children walking down Main St. U.S.A. and seeing the Castle lights for the first time, or images in my head of my oldest two side by side in a double stroller, looking up with eyes wide, mouths agape, and hands outstretched to catch the “snow” as we strolled through the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. And later, my youngest, now 10, dancing in the Streets of America to Feliz Navidad as a tiny 5 year old, laughing and spinning around, as I captured it on video. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. Don’t even get me started on Candlelight Processional and how I’m moved to tears every year as the songs swell and the voices sing out and you realize all the things you are truly, truly grateful for on this earth.

Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing LightsThese are the holiday traditions and memories my children grew up with. And I know they wouldn’t trade them for the world. We are extremely blessed to be so close to all of these amazing holiday experiences, and to have been able to attend them for so many years so that they have become traditions, not just holiday happenings, but part of the ever-growing tapestry of our family story. One could say that these new traditions couldn’t possibly mean as much, since they take place at the globally dominant headquarters of capitalization and money-hungry corporate messages of “buy this!” abound. And you would be right, and wrong. Yes, Disney parks are corporate wizards at marketing their way into your wallets and making you think you need more and you need it now. But if you sift past the mind-numbing amounts of instagrammable offerings thrown at you, you can experience the holiday spirit in its refined, concentrated form. Christmas lights, traditional holiday storytelling, holiday treats from around the world, parades, cookies, holiday music and trees and decorations everywhere. Gingerbread houses, caroling, Santa and Mrs. Claus, the story of Christmas….These are the takeaways and the memories created at the Place Where Dreams Come True (and the Happiest Place on Earth because we’ve been to Disneyland during the holidays too and they are pretty darn magical over there as well), which will carry my children into adulthood as they create their own traditions with whatever and whomever the future holds for them.

Our neighbor’s holiday light display…

My holiday story has gone from one where you never know who would show up at the front door for some coffee and Christmas cookies, to walking through a Disney park and never knowing which friends and neighbors you’d bump into. My oldest children drove right around the Magic Kingdom every day on their way to and from high school. And now they walk into a park and see friends working as Cast Members, or work there themselves, sharing the magic that they grew up enjoying with thousands of guests each day. I know they realize how “magical” their lives are as far as our connection to Disney and Orlando in general, and it amazes me to see how grounded and inspired they are by those connections that have become their backstory. And as happy as my memories are of waking up to new fallen snow and the promise of a day of sledding, theirs are just as happy of celebrating birthdays and milestones at favorite Disney restaurants or riding through Fort Wilderness to see the holiday decorations or attending Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party each year. Times change, the backdrop may change, even family shrinks and grows over the years, but the holiday memories still abound, no matter where you may find them.

Have your holiday traditions changed over the years? What are some of your favorites? I’d love to hear them. 

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Filed Under: Commentary Land, Disney Holidays, Family Memories, Top Stories Tagged With: Boston, Christmas, Disney Christmas, Disney holidays, Disney memories, Family Memories, Growing up in the 80's, Holiday traditions, Massachusetts, New England

Celebrating the 4th in Celebration!

6 July 2011 by Suzannah Otis 2 Comments

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I’ve got some catching up to do with writing on ZannaLand but I’ve been busy packing up and moving a whole hour away from our former home outside of Tampa, FL to our new home in Celebration, FL. It’s been a dream of my husband and I to live here since ground was broken in Celebration back in 1994. I’ll be writing about our experiences soon, but until then, enjoy these two photos from our first Fourth of July celebration in Celebration!

Celebration FL 4th
Market Street in Celebration, FL

 

Celebration FL 4th
Over-looking the lake in downtown Celebration
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Filed Under: Family Memories, Walt Disney World Tagged With: 4th of July, Celebration FL, Family Memories, family photos, Fourth of July, moving

Back to the Future-Memories of My 1983 Trip to EPCOT

18 August 2010 by Suzannah Otis 11 Comments

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It’s no secret that I am a proud child of the 80’s. Also no secret that the reason I fell in love with Walt Disney World was my 1983 visit to EPCOT Center, when we stayed at the Lake Buena Vista Vacation Villas. I’m sure part of what made that visit so special is that my parents actually drove us down from Massachusetts. We stopped at historical sites on the way over and back, breaking up the 1300 mile drive, but the ultimate destination was Disney and this all new park we’d read about in Birnbaum’s Official Guide – EPCOT Center. I’ve explained how a little purple dragon and his dream-finding friend are what really sparked (pun intended) my love of Disney but I wanted to go back to the 9 year-old me and see what she thought of things, as they happened.

Since I still can’t locate my flux capacitor, I have the next best thing – my actual travel diary from that 1983 trip. I remember that blank journal so well; my mom had bought it for me in a sticker shop along with my latest Lisa Frank obsessions to add to my sticker books (I still have my sticker album which would be another awesome entry for my fellow 80’s kids). It had a shiny silver cover with a rainbow on the front. The pages were then different colors of the rainbow, so if you looked at it on the side, it was complete rainbow perfection. Sadly, I didn’t save the whole journal for some reason. We’ve moved so many times I probably just thought I’d pull out the pages I wrote on and save them. I know I used it to record our next trip when we flew down with my siblings and also stayed in the Villas, but I do not have those pages any more. What I do have, is just hysterical.

First, it is written in some sort of 9 year-old short hand and most definitely from a 9 year-old’s perspective as to what the important parts of the trip were. Well, let me just show you…

journal 1983

The first page is from the first leg of our drive, from Sharon, Massachusetts to Savannah Georgia. Unfortunately I did not date my entries, but I’m pretty sure it was the end of the summer in 1983, since school started pretty soon afterward and I remember presenting my trip souvenirs (match books, drink stirrers, guide maps…) to my 5th grade class a few weeks later. Everything below is as I wrote it, including the things in parentheses. The things in brackets, however, are my notes today. Most of the pictures are from 1983, but a few are from our trip the next year.

“We arrived at 1:45. It took 7½ hours. Got settled at the Quality Inn. [This was in Washington, DC.] I got a surprise visit to the zoo! [Pandas were really big back then and I wanted nothing more than to see them at the National Zoo!] Then we took a ride to see the memorials and monument, Capitol and White House. We ate at the Inn of the Eight Immortals (a szechuan Chinese food place) [no longer there it seems]. Then we saw the hospital I was born in and the house we lived in then.

-Wednesday-

We got a tour of the Capitol and had lunch at the Senate Dining Room [I have no idea whether or not this was a big deal back then or if it’s the same now, that you are allowed to dine there if they have room. When I was first born, my father worked as the Maitre D’ of the Capitol Hill Club, so I’m not sure if he still knew people there or not]. We went to half of the Smithsonian. Then we swam a little and finally we had dinner at Farrell’s ice cream parlor [this was in Tyson’s Corner and has been closed for a while]. Then we go home and sleep.

dad and me smithsonian
My dad and I outside the Smithsonian – I was caught mid-blink 😛

-Thursday-

We arrived in Georgia about 4:30. We swim for a long time then we eat dinner at the Pirate’s House. That was excellent. I was scared to look  at some of the pirate figures they had set up and I almost walked into the boys bathroom! We come back late and read or whatever. Then we finally get to sleep. (Daddy snores all the time.)

[There is then a gigantic arrow letting anyone reading to know to turn the page. :P]

-Friday- [I apologize for the run-on format to follow!]

At 6:00 am we get up and get ready to go. We find a cockroach (gross!) and then start driving to Florida. We have breakfast at McDonald’s. We do every day practically! We came to EPCOT at 10:15! Daddy makes dinner reservations at Germany [I remember this, it was in the original area underneath Spaceship Earth where you could make video reservations with guest relations. That was one of THE coolest things ever.] We call Nana and off to the Land. We see a nature film [Symbiosis] it was SO loud! Then a boat ride with lots of veggies then see dancing veggies  – Kitchen Karoba (sp?) [Obviously Kitchen Kabaret made an impact on me haha]. Then my all-time favorite: Journey into Imagination! Awesome. Then we go to the Image Works same place) – Rainbow tunnel, stepping on notes etc. Then awesome 3-D movie [Magic Journeys]. I admit I did grab for some objects coming out! Then home to an awesome motel  – 2 bedrooms, fold out sofa – bath, kitchen. [This, my friends, was my 9 year-old impression of the Vacation Villas. Oh well. I appreciate it now!]

lake buena vista villas
My mom and I posing in ultra early 80’s luxury at the Lake Buena Vista Vacation Villas.

We have a snack and off to Germany. First we went on Spaceship Earth – no line. Went straight up and straight down backwards! Then Germany. Show, dancers, singers, horn players, etc. etc. German shops then go to Italy just in time for the Teatro di Bologna – very funny! Then the France movie and Mom and I wait in a line of 500,000 it seemed for yummy pastry. We buy a Figment. [I still have him, broken neck and all…]

journey into imagination 1983
The original Figment topiary…

-Saturday-

Up at 7am. Coffee for Mummy and Daddy. We walk in the super World of Motion after Daddy makes reservations for Japan, then onto the Universe of Energy. Scary dinosaurs but great moving theater – dull movie at end. [Sorry UoE, I’ll still always love you, even tho I was petrified of the dinosaurs!] Journey into Imagination again. Still awesome. Then the Land for a danish breakfast, back to monorail and a ferry to the Magic Kingdom. Took a fire engine to Cinderella Castle. We walk into Small World then Carousel ride and on to the Magic Kingdom railroad, Haunted house and Pirates of Caribbean [no, I didn’t spell it right back then :P]. A hot dog for lunch and then Tiki Birds, a swirl ice at Orange Bird stand [*cry*] and shops, then take the ferry back to EPCOT and car and motel. [I love how I keep calling it a motel.] Daddy and I take a quick dip in the pool then off to dinner in Japanese Manor [not sure why I called it that?!]. Really good. I learned the trick of chopsticks. Then shops, UK shops and Renaissance play – Romeo and Juliet! The Canada round movie. Back to EPCOT and World of Motion, Imagination again. Time for Image Works and DDD movie [I was so funny har har]. We get popsicles then home to bed.

dad and me outside journey into imagination
My Daddy, cigarette and all, and me. 😉 Look at those cool trees in the background!

-Sunday-

Up at 6:30, coffee and cereal time. Off to Mass at the Polynesian [I spelled it Poloneasayn haha] resort – flowers, birds and buggies. Back to EPCOT on monorail. Then breakfast at Good Turn restaurant. We eat and see Land boat ride as we eat! Off to American stage for World Showcase dancers – great – we talk to a dancer [I remember exactly what she looked like. My mom being a former professional ballerina, she loved this show and loved getting to talk to this dancer] and then Mom and Daddy see French movie. I see marionette show Hansel and Gretel [I have absolutely zero memory of this show OR my parents letting me watch it alone!] Then World dancers again. I dance with one – neat – off to the motel. McD’s for lunch then pool. [ick, McD’s for lunch, really?!] Back to EPCOT for dinner in Mexico. Really neat! It’s like a town square in Mexico. Mom and Daddy ate cactus! I tried a little turnip, interesting! Went on the boat ride – neat. Then Magic Kingdom for Electric parade and fireworks. Great! The Wings of Man [my name for If You Had Wings? Ah hA! Just looked it up – that was Eastern airline’s slogan at the time.], G.E. Carousel of Progress, People Mover then back on monorail for home. We’re pooped!

world showcase dancer and zanna
I guess that’s why I remember what she looked like – we had a picture!
World Showcase dancer and zanna
Embarrassed!

-Monday-

Up for EPCOT, sad day – last day. We ate breakfast in Good Turn, went on rides and started driving for Maryland. Drove and drove and drove. When Mom drove we went 90 miles an hour – no ticket. Later Daddy went 76 and got a ticket! Arrived in MD at a good time, went to D.C. first. Went to a French restaurant [La Nicoise, sadly now closed as well] where the waiters were all on roller skates! Then to Maryland, we went to an absolutely awesome aquarium and to the shops. I get stickers and a painters cap with Suzy written on it. Ate at Phillip’s Crab House then drove home.”

Journey into Imagination 1984
This is a terrible quality picture, but I had to post it. We took a picture of our family’s picture at the end of Journey into Imagination. I’m the one clinging to my dad’s arm because I don’t want the ride to be over… 🙁

And that’s it. An uneventful end to a journey back to such an amazing time. I think I’ve rambled enough about all that this trip meant to me back then, and I know for a fact I’ll discuss it again, as it is my hope to post my Love Letter to EPCOT sometime soon…so I’ll just end this here. Thank you for reading and letting me indulge a bit of the childhood me. If you’d told the excited little me back then what my love of Disney would turn into today…I just might have believed you. After all, Dreamfinder told me imagination belongs to all of us.

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Filed Under: Commentary Land, Disney Past Tagged With: 1980s, 1983, 1984, childhood memories, Disney memories, Disney past, Disney pictures, EPCOT Center, Family Memories, Pictures, retro EPCOT, Walt Disney World

Once Upon a Blog…ZannaLand is a Year Old!

25 June 2010 by Suzannah Otis 12 Comments

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Exactly one year ago today, I made my very first post regarding Walt Disney World after deciding to theme the blog to discuss all things Disney. A lot has happened in that year. A LOT. I will admit more often than not I’ve thought about giving up the blog – not because I don’t want to write, but I either can’t find the time to write the things I need and want to say, and then worry no one wants to read them anyway, and then fear by not writing I’ll lose what few people I do have reading my updates (thanks, Mom). It’s quite the vicious cycle. Remember when I talked about not being a professional journalist? Now would be one of those times. Most people wouldn’t be discussing this sort of thing, but I guess that’s what makes this a personal blog and not a news and information site. I do tend to wear my heart on my sleeve, both on and offline. For those that have stuck with me despite that trait, thank you. In honor of today’s anniversary, I thought I’d take a stroll down ZannaLand’s memory lane…

It’s no secret that ZannaLand has changed since its inception. In fact, when it first started there was nary a mention of Mickey and his Florida home. Originally this was a place where I sold a zine I wrote, entitled, “Zanna, Do!” all about my life as a slacker and how I was still searching for my dream job. That was in 2004, right after the sudden death of my father, after I had just turned 30 a couple of months prior. It had been my dream to be a writer since I could first put sentences together. I still have some very funny stories I wrote in grade school, summer camp, and high school which, while embarrassing to read now, bring me back to a time when I wasn’t afraid of failure or rejection. I just wrote. Then I got to college and decided to major in Creative Writing for Children and was suddenly hit with this daunting fear of “What if I fail?”. For a long time, that’s all I thought about, and decided if I didn’t try, I couldn’t fail. I then moved on to Travel & Tourism Management and living in Florida: briefly working for Disney and moving up from travel agent to manager of an Orlando area agency. I got married, had two of my children, and my dream of writing faded even further into the distance. Suddenly I was a mom first and any other ambitions went out with the diaper genie trash.

As I mentioned above, I turned 30, and two months later, my father was gone. Suddenly the little voice I’d tried to silence for so long in the back of my head was screaming at me – “Do something!”. So I wrote that zine. It seemed like a failure-free way to start out. I was publishing it myself, mailing it out to people online that wanted to read it, and even getting some independent book store distributors to sell it. It led to me writing an essay for a book that was published in 2005 entitled “If Women Ruled the World.” My piece was very fluffy and tongue-in-cheek and published alongside serious commentary on women in the world. It was exciting nonetheless. Anyway, life took over and I once again left my writing behind to carry on as a mom first and foremost. A few years passed and we relocated to Tampa, I had our third child, and as you most likely are aware, discovered twitter.

My story from that point on is well known; embracing my dreams of writing and being involved with Disney has been the best risk I ever took. Truly, I could not have been as ambitious as I was without the almost-instant support of everyone I came in contact with online. Rather than hearing “Don’t bother, there are a million and one Disney blogs out there…” I heard “Go for it, you can do it!”. Rather than hearing “The odds are against you getting on the WDW Moms Panel…” I heard, “You’d be perfect! Good luck!” And yes, my application experience was a little different because I thought I didn’t make it to the 2nd round but then I did – but sometimes technology is unreliable. Even Laura Spencer herself thought she didn’t make it to the phone interviews until right before they happened.

There will always be those that say I was picked because I was so vocal about my dreams on twitter and my blog – and yes, I was obsessed. I don’t recommend it to anyone because it truly was a 1 in 20,000 chance that I would get chosen and the odds were against me. I thought I hadn’t  made it and yes, I was crushed. I learned during those few days that it’s great to have goals, but you have to be able to adjust them if they aren’t within your power to achieve. I couldn’t *make* Disney pick me, no matter how bad I “wanted it”. I had done my best and had just gotten to the point where I was able to move on (great thanks to everyone that I leaned upon during that time, I will never forget how you all tried to lift my spirits), when I got the 2nd email telling me there was a mistake. It wasn’t a 2nd chance – it was a mistake. Obviously, my emotions were all over the place at that point and I truly can’t say how I wouldn’t handled it if I made I then didn’t make it to round 3 or the finals. But fate had different plans and I did make it to round 3, on to the phone interviews and (obviously) the panel.

As thankful and grateful as I was after getting off that phone call, a part of me never really stopped to realize what an accomplishment it actually was and to soak that in. Part of me always had my own sense of self-doubt that I had ‘bugged’ my way onto the panel. Logically though, even I can see how ridiculous that is. Why would a multi-billion dollar company choose me out of tens of thousands of entries just to ‘shut me up’? The simple answer is, they wouldn’t. The team behind the Walt Disney World Moms Panel application process doesn’t enter lightly into their choices. And while I’m never going to be the one to say, “yeah, I’m pretty awesome” the fact that Disney thought I was worthy enough to be welcomed onto this panel, is an honor to be celebrated. It has, in fact, been an amazing journey and the friends I’ve made along the way have made it all the sweeter.

Now lets get back to the blog! Once I made the panel, I was kind of in a place of limbo with the blog. Will writing it interfere with my role on the Moms Panel? Should I step away from Disney topics and attempt to be a “mom blogger”? I chose the latter and soon found out it wasn’t for me. I have great respect for mom bloggers and the real-life topics they share with all of us trying to be successful parents. I have even greater respect for those that can be completely real, dirty laundry and all, all with amazing wit and wisdom thrown in. I tried to be involved in networks and ‘get myself out there’ as much as I could. However, I soon found that blogging the same giveaways 100 other moms were posting was not for me. I had built my community of readers up by sharing my experiences and love of Disney, and now I was trying to tell them about this exciting new product. I felt like I wasn’t being true to myself. So I again returned to Disney-centric posting.

Then a funny thing happened, my adorable little baby that was crawling around suddenly started walking and talking and running and wanting to get into everything all.the.time. My older kids had a lot going on at school too and my time to blog was suddenly reduced to maybe two hours a day…and in those same two hours I had to take a shower, keep up with laundry, clean the house and once April came around, answer questions on the Moms Panel. I know thousands of women do all this and more daily, but I just couldn’t keep up and actually get any writing done. There were (and are) multiple days in a row when I just can’t update the site. Then, of course, I get anxious. “OMG everyone’s going to delete my site from their feed, stop reading, move on, and forget about me!” And yes, I am admitting that I fear that. I am not making any money from this site and I’m not in it for ‘fame’ or ‘celebrity’ in fact it makes me cringe when I see pictures or video of myself, even though I love the opportunities that take place to hang out with the other people in those pictures and videos. What I was and am in it for is to fulfill my dream of writing. I’ve made some strides there and have been incredibly grateful for the breaks I’ve been given to be a guest author and now a contributing author at Whoa, Momma! Being on the Moms Panel has also been amazing and every time I log on to answer questions, I get a smile on my face.

So, where does that leave me? Well, I’ve never been an “information only” blog. I will share news or reviews but 99% of the time I still throw my personal spin on it. The thing about blogging is you want to share your stories with others. You want people to read and connect and interact. And once you get a little of that, it does become a little addictive. It’s hard not to think, how can I reach more people? How can I get more readers? And as noted, I do have down days where I want to give it all up. This blog will always be a personal blog for better or for worse. There are 100’s or even 1000’s of blogs and sites that will tell you the latest and greatest Disney news – and they are wonderful. ZannaLand will never be one of those sites.

What I will do is tell you how walking down Main Street, USA looking up at Cinderella Castle at night still gives me chills. I’ll tell you about my interactions with Dreamfinder in 1983 and how he and Figment wanted to connect the dots on my freckles. I’ll tell you about my when my two oldest children were little and their faces lit up at the ‘snow’ and lights at the Studios or how my youngest ran to the window of Animal Kingdom Lodge and yelled out “RAFFE!” as he saw his first live giraffe through the windows. In between, I’ll share some tips and other experiences that may make your vacation more enjoyable. Maybe I’ll give some things away. Maybe I’ll share some other bloggers with you, or other travel destinations I think you may enjoy. My point is, you’ll get me, my personal experiences and then some. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Hopefully, you’ll find something you can identify with and share back with me, because we’re just getting started.

Thank you for reading.

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Filed Under: All blogs, Family Memories Tagged With: blog anniversary, blogiversary, Disney, Disney Moms Panel, Family Memories, zannaland

Alice’s All New Wonderland-Tim Burton’s Playground

4 March 2010 by Suzannah Otis 12 Comments

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Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland poster
I have this poster, from Sid Cahuenga's at Disney's Hollywood Studios...

Those who know me offline know I am rather obsessed with Alice in Wonderland. If I could, my entire house, or at the very least a room, would be themed to Alice in Wonderland. Shockingly, I was never TOO into the Disney animated film when I was little – it just always seemed too long. But as I got older, I grew to love Disney’s Cheshire cat and Alice herself. Tom Petty’s Don’t Come Around Here No More video is still one of my favorites. In college I may have owned a tie-dyed t-shirt featuring the iconic caterpillar, but I don’t think I was wearing if for the same reason everyone else was. {I did go through an innocent phase of tie-dyed shirt-crystal-necklace wearing in college…Stacy and Clinton would’ve had a field day with me. Ok, they probably still would. But I digress…}

[Read more…] about Alice’s All New Wonderland-Tim Burton’s Playground

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Filed Under: Family Memories Tagged With: Alice in Wonderland, Disney movies, Family Memories, Tim Burton

How Chris Brogan Saved My {Blogging} Life

15 February 2010 by Suzannah Otis 26 Comments

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Confession: I had a blogging identity crisis. Right in the middle of Walt Disney World.

Readers of ZannaLand may have noticed the not-so-subtle shift from Disney posts to more me/personal/generic posts. This happened both because I combined the MainStreet.Zannaland.com posts here and I really wanted to venture out into the world of Mom Blogs and hopefully get more involved with other bloggers, product reviews and blogging opportunities. I thought – “I can be a REAL blogging mom!” There was only one problem…I had no idea what to blog about.

I’m just not a gifted blogger like some of my friends. I can’t keep things short and sweet and interesting and share-worthy about me. Even as I wrote out my first “all about me” post I looked at it and thought, “Really?! Who is going to want to read this?” {ok, my mom wanted to} And lets be honest, being a successful blogger is often times about the numbers and no one is out there googling “What kind of childhood did Suzannah DiMarzio have?” The result was it was stressing me out. Big time.

I was emailing my blogging friends, desperately asking for help and advice…all the while writing up my life story while I waited for the “oh, here’s how you do it” replies. I’d hit send on my email and be embarrassed for myself, asking such stupid questions when I pretty much knew the answers. I just didn’t know how to come up with the content to keep people interested. I lay awake at night worrying about what the %#&! I was going to write about the next day. Blogging started to feel like a job. I knew something was wrong and it shouldn’t feel like that. I’m sure many people treat blogging like a job, and probably have the income to prove it, but that is not what I set out to do. I wanted to connect with others and share my experiences in hopes of helping others in some way – and make friends along the way. The crazy part was, I’d already done that. It was those connections that cheered me on when I was applying to the Walt Disney World Moms Panel. It was those connections that helped get my blog noticed and out there to begin with. In my eagerness to get to the next big thing, I forgot the big thing I already had.

Before I left for the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration, I actually wanted to give up blogging. The stress was getting to me and I was doing it wrong. I figured I’d give myself till after the conference to decide, and hopefully learn something there that would help set me straight.

And I did. It just wasn’t the answer I thought I was looking for.

I will do recaps of the entire conference experience and the people I met, but this post had to come first. One of the speakers I was most looking forward to hearing was Chris Brogan. I had watched his keynote speech at IZEAFest and of course instantly liked him because he was from Boston. However, I worried that his speech really wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I wasn’t a business, I wasn’t even a successful mom blogger – how could his advice on social media business relationships help ME?

My biggest fear as a blogger was selling out. I didn’t want to become one of those blogs with 200 blinking ads on either side, only talking about the great product I just tried and leaving all my personality and stories on the other side of the screen. When I got up the courage to just introduce myself to Chris at breakfast on Thursday (yes, I said courage, for a shy fat girl with social anxiety, it was a big deal) he asked me, “What do you hope to get out of the speech tomorrow?” We were interrupted by a cast member that needed to whisk Chris away for an interview, but it gave me time to come up with an answer. I later tweeted him that I wanted to know how a new-ish blogger could successfully use social media without “selling out”. I figured he had over 100 other people telling him what they wanted to get out of his presentation as well, and just thought I’d sit back and enjoy his speech.

In absence of a white board, Cinderella Castle works for Chris Brogan

Chris is a smart, witty, engaging speaker. His subtle jokes are the same ones that run through my mind half the day and go over most people’s heads. He opens with the Zulu greeting “Sawubona” which means “I see you.” And he does. There was no person too ‘small’ that Chris didn’t see and connect with. He made sure of it. I will never forget his magic triangle describing Community, Content, and Spnsors, invisibly drawn on the Cinderella Castle backdrop behind him on the stage.

Then he spoke the simple words – “Never alienate your community.” I felt as if that phrase was branded onto my brain. Or rather, as if those words had finally opened my eyes. I had alienated my community, or was at the very least on the path to do so. I had created such a wonderful community of Disney fans and then said, “oh, well, now that you’re here lets talk about my laundry.” Clearly, I had made the wrong choice.

I mulled over that phrase again and again for the remainder of my time at the conference. I tweeted my friend that I was having a blogging identity crisis. I met amazing, wonderful mom bloggers that CAN tell people about their laundry or any other number of topics and get people to listen – and care. I simply am not one of those people. Maybe, in time {and with more time personally}, I could be but right now, it’s just not where I am in the blogging world. Kind of like a rock guitarist that gets a job with an orchestra. You know how to play the music, you know the notes, yet you are never really playing the right song.

Once I had that revelation and made the decision that followed, I was again excited about blogging. I was filled with ideas and new goals to reach. The stress was gone. Even though Chris Brogan stopped short of reenacting James Brown’s scene from The Blues Brothers, shouting “Do you see the light!?” and I stopped short of doing back flips in Grand Republic Ballroom A, I did see the light.

Even if sticking with my niche prevents me from working with certain companies or being open to some opportunities available to a more broad-content blog, that’s okay. If I have my community and my content, the rest will come. And if I make a really cool Xbox Controller Cake and want to share it with you, I will. If my kids do something funny or I have a craft to share, I will. But I will do my best to never alienate you again. {And I’ll just save my childhood stories for my book 😉 } I am a mom blogger. I’m a mom that blogs about Disney. And that’s okay.

So thank you, Chris. Sawubona. And I’m so grateful that I did.

 


*This post is now part of the Disney Blog Carnival, where you can find a great group of Disney articles!*

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Filed Under: Commentary Land, Walt Disney World Tagged With: #DisneySMMoms, Blogging, Chris Brogan, community, content, Disney, Disney Social Media Moms, Disney Social Media Moms Celebration, Family Memories, Holidays, zannaland

What Kind of Parent Did Your Childhood Make You?

4 February 2010 by Suzannah Otis 26 Comments

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I’ve mentioned before that I was spoiled as a child. I remember once, a two of my friends told me I was spoiled and I had to ask my mom what it meant. She said it meant I was really loved. Now obviously that could be misinterpreted to lead my friends to think they weren’t loved, but we all seemed to turn out okay. Really, as a child I don’t recall being obnoxiously spoiled. I mean – I never had an Easy Bake Oven OR a Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine, so seriously, how bad could it have been? I actually think the conversation with my friends came from my announcing our first trip to Walt Disney World. I suppose, in the world of a small bedroom community in New England, announcing a 2-week trip to Walt Disney World where we would stay in the Lake Buena Vista Vacation Villas was something to be envied.

Anyway, that is not the point of this post. I wanted to talk a bit about my parents, and how I was raised. Of course, my reflections and memories of my childhood are just that, MY memories, and my mom may have a completely different account as to how things happened. These are the things that stuck with me and formed me into the kind of parent I am today – some as a direct result of what I rebelled against as a child, others because I appreciated the lessons I learned from my parents.

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Filed Under: All blogs, Family Memories Tagged With: childhood, Family Adventures, Family Memories, kids, parenting, parenting choices, parenting discipline

Once Upon a Time…

2 February 2010 by Suzannah Otis 1 Comment

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This is part 1 in the All About Me series for NaBloWriMo that I’m taking part in for February.


So I figured what better place to start than the beginning right? My parents met in Boston, when my dad was working in the same restaurant as my mom’s ex-husband – my siblings dad. Her ex-husband was working there on the side, his actual career was that of a high school English teacher. My dad had moved up from waiter to Maitre D’ of this particular place, The Cafe Budapest. This was a 5-star Hungarian restaurant run by a feisty woman named Edith Ban, a Holocaust survivor with her concentration camp number tattooed on her arm, a flair for business and wearing beautiful white dresses. The restaurant was famous for its cuisine as well as its color-themed rooms and was featured briefly in the movie The Housesitter.

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Filed Under: Family Memories Tagged With: 1980s, Boston, Cafe Budapest, Capitol Hill Club, childhood, Clifton Park, Fairfax, Family Memories, NaBloPoMo

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