December 12

One of the blessings (or curses depending on  how you think of it) of growing up in Orlando was having Walt Disney World in your back yard.   Back in the days I was in high school and the first year of college what is now known as Downtown Disney was referred to as Disney Village, and it was not nearly as commercialized or popular as it is now, as a matter of fact I remember it as a well kept secret.   Every year Disney would hold a Live Nativity at Disney Village and we would go watch it as a family.  It was such a moving production, every year I would get goosebumps whenever the drummer boy made his way to Baby Jesus' bed.   We only did this as a family a few years, I have no photos of this short lived annual trek, and I would continue to go until I left Orlando to go to college in Gainesville, but I remember it as a fond and special memory with my family.   The last time I went to Downtown Disney with a glimmer of hope that the may have the production at Christmas, I was sadly mistaken.  I was greeted by full parking lots, a throng of shoppers, and really no remnants of the quaint village I remember from my high school and college days.  And definitely no signs of the real reason for the season.