Hi guys!

Well, the big day is looming ever closer, and now that I've got most of the shopping and wrapping out of the way it's time to start thinking about relaxing and enjoying the big day and time with my family. For many families, nothing sums up Christmas more than sitting down together to watch a film, but with so many channels and so much on, where do you even start?

I've taken on the task of sifting through the listings to find all the Disney gems so that you can set the recorder and settle with the popcorn without doing any of the legwork - you're welcome.

Please note, I'm a one girl operation, I've covered the main channels for the main few festive days. If you see anything scheduled to be on that I've missed, please drop me a comment and I'll happily add it in!

Christmas Eve

7:15 am - Tinkerbell and the Secret of the Wings BBC 2

This 2012 animation was our introduction to Tink's friend Periwinkle, its the 4th film in the Tinkerbell series and at 75 mins running time is great for those with a shorter attention span. It's been a while since I've watched this one, but sadly I'll be at work when it's on, I can almost guarantee my niece will be watching though.

13:20 pm - Monsters University BBC 2

Following the 2001 Pixar smash Monsters Inc,  Monsters University is actually a prequel that tells the story of how Mike and Sulley met and eventually became best friends and work partners. The 2013 film is the 14th feature-length production from Pixar and is rated 79% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, it has a run time of 95 mins.

14:55 pm - Zootropolis BBC 1

The 55th animated classic Zootropolis is the story of Judy Hopps, a small Bunny with a big dream! Personally I really really enjoyed this film, it performed well in the box office, won an Oscar and the characters are very popular in the parks. The film is suitable for all ages and, like many Disney classics, has a strong moral message within its story. The characters are lovable and the music is catchy and if nothing else, its 108 mins you won't regret.

17:00 pm - Mary Poppins BBC 1

I don't suppose there's much I need to say here, this 1964 movie is a classic, not only that it's a firm family favourite and is often on during the festive season. With the new film opening in cinemas just a few days before on the 21st I imagine there will be a renewed interest in the original this year. I can't think of any better way to have a chilled evening than snuggled up on the sofa watching Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke making magic!

Christmas Day

6:25 AM - Tinkerbell and the legend of the Never Beast BBC 2

For early risers BBC 2 kicks off the big day with the final instalment in the Tinkerbell films, Legend of the Never Beast was released in 2014 and is my favourite from the series, with a running time of just 76 mins you'll have plenty of time after for swapping presents once the rest of the family are awake.

13:30 pm - The Good Dinosaur BBC 1

After a break for presents and Christmas dinner, you can settle back on the sofa and switch over to BBC 1 for Pixar's Good Dinosaur. Not my favourite film but I can't deny how incredible some of the artwork and animation is and it's a nice easy film to settle into without too much concentration, perfect for a post-lunch breather! It has a running time of 93 mins you'll also be finished in time for the next film to start.

15:10 pm - Jungle Book BBC1

This brings us to the point where hard decisions need to be made, until this point it's been possible to catch each film without overlap, if you decide to stay on BBC 1 you can watch the 2016 live-action adaptation of the Jungle Book. This is a film that has divided opinions, but at the very least it's worth checking out to make up your own mind, or if you don't fancy it, I've got some other options for you.

16:00 pm - The Muppet Christmas Carol Channel 4

A Christmas classic, Kermit and the gang take on the Charles Dickens' masterpiece a Christmas carol. Despite it being released in 1992, I hadn't seen this film until last year and now I wonder how I went through so many Christmases without it!

16:00 pm - Monsters Inc ITV

If you're going to watch Monsters University on Christmas Eve, why not go for the double and catch up with Mike and Sulley again, this time with the adorable Boo! this is the final film choice of the big day and still leaves time for a few Turkey sandwiches and a game of Monopoly afterwards too!

Boxing Day

10:30 am - The Princess and the Frog BBC 1

It's a slightly later start on Boxing day which is perfect for catching up on missed sleep from all the festivities, but a later start is no less impressive, Princess and the Frog the 4-time Oscar nominated 2009 animated film gives us a taste of the good old fashioned 2D animation that started it all. I love this film, the message, the characters, the music. It's a great feel-good film and a brilliant start to another festive day.

14:05 pm - 101 Dalmatians (Live action) 5Star

This is the 1996 live-action version, starring Glenn Close as the spine-chilling Cruella De Ville. This is actually one of the first few films I remember watching at

the cinema and began a huge obsession with dalmatians for me, the following Christmas I can remember all of my gifts being Dalmatian themed, so though it's perhaps not considered a classic/typical Christmas flick, it certainly has strong Christmas connections with me.

14:30 pm - Saving Mr Banks BBC 2

If 101 spotty dogs aren't your thing then fear not! Skip over to BBC 2 and let Tom Hanks wind down the festivities with Saving Mr Banks. Released in 2013 this is the story of Walt Disney's quest to get the rights to make the Mary Poppins film from the somewhat difficult author PL Travers who is played by Emma Thompson. With Mary Poppins returns out in cinemas, and the original Mary Poppins on Christmas Eve, I have no doubt this is how we will finish off Boxing day in my house.

So that's what I've found on the TV this Christmas, have you found anything I haven't spotted? What will you be watching at your house?

However you celebrate it, I hope you all have a great Christmas, and I look forward to everything 2019 holds.

Hoodsie xxx

Hey guys,

It's that time of year again! The trees are going up, the fairy lights are sparkling in every window, our electricity bills are through the roof and our bank balances are lower than ever before, I think it's called Christmas?

Jokes aside, anyone who knows me well will know I'm a little bit like Buddy the elf and Christmas, to me at least, truly is the most wonderful time of the year. So how do you take something so perfect and make it even better? You add Disney of course! I've been lucky enough to take 3 Christmas season trips to Disneyland Paris over the last few years and each time it manages to make my favourite season just that extra bit more magical. Sadly, this year a Christmas trip was just out of reach for me. So in a blogmas style, I thought I'd take a walk down memory lane and go through some of my favourite seasonal things at Disneyland Paris.

5. Snow.

Dreaming of a white Christmas? Not all of us channel our inner Elsa, and though I much prefer the cooler temperatures I'd be lying if I said the cold didn't bother me. Snow is beautiful, magical and gives me those dreamy Christmas vibes, but it's also cold, wet and after a day or two it's just a general nuisance. Enter "snoap", all the joy and wonder of snow, with none of the temperature related hassle! Snoap falls daily on Main Street, and twinned with the adorable festive soundtrack ringing from every speaker its the perfect start to your happiest of holidays! Even better is when it falls during the parade and cavalcades, like being in an idyllic Christmas card scene.

4. Decorations.

If you've been to my Grotto house in December, you'll know when it comes to Christmas, I'm no minimalist. I love the colours, the sparkle, anything with Santa's face on and those adorable singing plush animals are taking over the house one room at a time. Disneyland Paris doesn't disappoint on the decorations front. The hotels, the village and both of the parks embrace the season, with sparkling garlands, plump trees and more lights than Blackpool there's no shortage of eye-catching displays to fall in love with. The Disneyland elves do an incredible job of decorating and will leave even the grinchiest of guest with that warm festive glow.

3. Mickeys Christmas Big Band.

Christmas wouldn't be the same without music and once again Disney have got you covered. This show was new for 2017 and though I was extremely sceptical at first, I now wonder how we went so long without it! I won't go into a huge amount of detail about the show, firstly because not everyone has seen it and I don't want to spoil it, and secondly because I wrote about it last year which you can find here. But it's back this year and it's bigger and better than ever, it held me completely captivated from start to finish and I wish there was a non-festive version that could be shown all year round!

2. Christmas outfits.

Now I don't mean for myself, though I like to think I have an impressive winter wardrobe! As a character fan/hunter meeting as many characters as possible each trip is what makes me tick. But meeting characters in seasonal outfits? That's the icing on the cake. Now I know this could be a rather controversial thing this year due to the characters being out in their 25th blue and silver again rather than their red and green Christmas outfits. But when they are out in the classic red and green, you can bet I'm getting in that character line. I also love the special outfits for the seasonal stage shows, especially some of the outfits from Goofy's Incredible Christmas in the studios park.

1. The Christmas Cavalcade.

It's got music, costumes, incredible floats, an appearance from jolly old St Nick himself and most important of all, Duffy Bear! The Christmas cavalcade is the total icing on the cake moment of my Christmas trip! It's a chance to see less common characters like Horace, Clarabelle, Max and the 3 little pigs as well as Mickey and the gang, the floats seem to get bigger and better every year and the dancers really make the show. The song changed in 2017 and has pretty much been stuck in my head ever since. It's on a couple of times a day every day from November until early January and as soon as that music starts and the floats wind their way from Fantasyland to Main street my heart feels happy and I know I'm where I'm meant to be. If you haven't seen it, you can check it out thanks to DLRPFans on YouTube.

So that's what I'm missing most this December, what about you? If there's something you're missing, or something you're really loving, drop me a comment and let me know!

Hoodsie xxx

Hey Guys!

It's been a while, more than a while actually and for that, I'm really sorry! Truth is since getting home from Run Disney in September, not only have I not had any Disney trips to tell you about, but my life has been totally turned upside down by my new puppy Charlie!

The good news is we're working into a bit more of a routine now, and with my apprenticeship exams finishing for a while I've got a bit more time to put some much-needed love into my blog.

So to ease myself back into things, I recently watched Ralph breaks the internet and want to share my thoughts about it with you all. As always, I'll do my best to keep it spoiler free for those of you who are yet to see the film!

So Ralph breaks the internet is the sequel to the 2012 Disney animation Wreck it Ralph, if you haven't seen the original I would highly recommend catching up. In short, the film follows 80's video game villain Ralph as he learns to accept his role as a "bad guy" and learns that being bad, can be good!

Now, I can probably guess what you're thinking, it's a Disney sequel and these don't always have the best track record. On one hand there's Toy Story 2, but on the other, there's Cinderella 2, it's a mixed bag, to say the least and honestly, when I watched the first Wreck it Ralph film 6 years ago, I didn't feel like it needed a sequel. So I went into this with a certain amount of caution, I hoped for something great, but I didn't necessarily expect this.

The film starts by taking us back to Litwak's arcade, where the first film was based, we find that Vanellope and Ralph are still great friends, they spend the days "working" in their respective games and then the nights hanging out in all the other games in the arcade and watching the sun come up each morning. For Ralph, this is the dream every day is the same, no surprises just routine, however, Vanellope is starting to get a little bored of the same races, the same tracks, she wants adventure.

Ralph decides to try and help Vanellope add some excitement to Sugar Rush by building a new track, unfortunately, wreck it by name, is also wreck it by nature, the new track ends with a broken steering wheel controller. Due to the age of the machine parts aren't easy to come by, and though the kids in the arcade find a new steering wheel on Ebay, the $200 price tag is more than Sugar rush makes in a year. If the machine can't be repaired within a week, the game will be unplugged and Vanellope and all the racers will have no game to call home!

Ralph decides it's time to go to the internet, find ebay and get Vanellope a new steering wheel to fix her game. Meanwhile, Felix and Calhoun, who have been happily married for 6 years, agree to adopt the 15 homeless Sugar rush kids, what could possibly go wrong?

I can honestly say, this film wasn't what I was expecting. I know I wasn't the only one who was excited for this film, but with each subsequent teaser and then trailer, I began to wonder if there would be much of the film I hadn't already seen by the time I took my seat in the cinema. Well, I'm pleased to say I couldn't have been more wrong. Sure I may have missed one or two trailers, so perhaps some elements were more of a surprise to me than others, but I truly believe the trailers were just the same few sections of the film re-cut and re-edited to look different, while not revealing all that much about the final product.

One of my other concerns from the trailers was that this might just be a selection of jokes and memes stitched together for 90 mins, again this was not the case and the film actually had a cohesive and heartfelt storyline throughout. In particular, Vanellope and Ralph's characters were heavily invested upon and we got to delve a little deeper into their emotions, and what makes them tick. I was sad not to see more from Felix and Calhoun, but this was never their story and that's ok.

Now the film does, of course, have a lot of references, it's what makes the film what it is, it deliberately plays off Ralph and Vanellopes characters against well-known characters and brands. The second installment is no different, only that instead of games characters, it is now the biggest and best known online brands and trends that are getting the comic treatment that made us fall in love with Wreck It Ralph. My personal favorites were ebay, twitter and Oh my Disney all 3 of which were, in my opinion, brilliant concepts which I wouldn't have imagined and yet they fit so perfectly.

For a lot of people, the storyline was a huge concern, the trailers really didn't give much away and with so many references and jokes to fit in, it could easily have been lost. I have to say though the plot wasn't anything too different from any standard Disney film, it felt sincere, well rounded and had some truly tear-jerking moments, the latter of which I didn't expect at all. As always there was an important message or two for us all to take away from the film and I really felt like I'd been through every emotion possible.

It would be impossible to cross the entire world wide web and not make a few new friends, Ralph and Vanellope are no different and the sequel offered us some new characters to meet and inevitably fall in love with. My particular favorite was Knowsmore, this little guy is exactly what a human search engine should be, funny, knowledgeable and at times, ever so slightly frustrating. Though I really appreciated Yesss, the social media queen of BuzzzTube! In fact, I have to say all of the new characters brought something of their own to the film and each one connected with us in a different way.

The Disney Princess scene was a huge talking point when the trailer first hit and it would be pretty criminal of me not to give them a mention. I'm so happy to say the scenes with the princesses were everything I could have asked for, and then a little bit more. Though they made up a short portion of the overall film I loved getting to see such well-loved characters together. I loved that for the most part the original voice cast was used, I cannot begin to imagine how much fun was had recording with all of them. I also enjoyed how each character was depicted, their key traits were so easy to pick out and it made for some brilliant reactions from Vanellope. It was great to see Disney poke fun at themselves while staying in character.

Overall I loved this movie, the attention to detail once inside the internet was incredible! As a self-confessed nerd who probably spends way too much time online, it was so much fun to try and spot all the different references and see websites we use everyday imagined in a totally new and fun way. The story was definitely not a weak point as I had feared it might have been and it never felt like a re-hash of the first film.

I'm not sure if Ralph or Vanellope will return for a third film, I honestly can say the story felt complete and there was no need for another film to tie up any plot ends, however, having seen what Rich Moore and his team have achieved with this film, I would wholeheartedly welcome another installment. Maybe in another 6 years, we can catch up with the gang at Litwaks, the internet or beyond, until then, I'll wait rather impatiently for a Blu Ray release!

What about you guys? Have you seen Ralph Breaks the internet yet? What did you think, or if not, have I persuaded you to give it a try now?

Hoodsie xx