Café Con Monica

My Favorite Christmas Movies!

We are down to 3 1/2 days of school til Winter Break guys! I couldn’t be happier. I am exhausted!!! 
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Just like everyone else I love to watch as many Christmas movies as I can during the Holiday Season so I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you guys!! 
 
I don’t have cable so I don’t get to watch the ABC Family 25 Days of Christmas but I can just find the movies and watch them on some of the same nights! 
 
That being said…here are some movies I have to watch every year! I do have to watch these every year. 

Most of these are more recent but I do like the classics too….

And then, of course, you have Die Hard. 

What are some of your favorite Christmas movies? More importantly….are you a fan of Die Hard? 

Don’t forget to check out my new Instagram! Or you can follow me on Pinterest, Bloglovin. 

Top 5 Holiday Things – Austin

There are always a 101 things going on during the holidays that we hope we can get to but I like to try and pick a top 5 and make plans to do those.  
I was always great at this in Chicago…speaking of I should probably make one for Chicago too. 

Since I love all Holiday things, this is our first Austin Christmas and AJS will do whatever I plan for us I thought I’d share 5 great Austin holiday things to do! 

A Christmas Carol @ Zach Theatre 

I promise you that this is unlike any other A Christmas Carol that you have ever seen! Most obvious is that it is a musical and they use contemporary music (think Bruno Mars). 
It is really an exciting update while still following the original story! 

Mozart’s Coffee- Christmas Lights Show

This coffee “shop” is huge, right on the lake and both indoor/outdoor. They decorate with tons of lights and you can grab a hot chocolate, one of their delicious brownies and watch the light show to some music. They even have a piano player some nights. 

Trail of Lights 

We are going this weekend so I couldn’t use a photo of my own yet but we are so excited to check it out! They have a movie night, a fun run, food trucks (because Austin) and 2 million lights with free admission Mon-Weds the two weeks leading up to Xmas too!

 

Visit a Holiday Bar – Miracle on 5th St 

Sometimes you want to do Holiday things that aren’t as family friendly so that you can be be merry and avoid strollers. In that case I always go for the pop up holiday bars! They had a great Holiday themed menu and a Santa throne for photos. 

Ice Skating (Whole Foods or Winter Wonderland)

Luckily it really hasn’t gotten cold enough to be miserable outside yet. Of course, I say this coming from Chicago so while everyone here is freezing I am still doing just fine. Since there is no snow or super cold temps here yet I think that Ice Skating is a great holiday season activity! The whole foods on Lamar has a super cute outdoor rink upstairs and the Winter Wonderland has lights, rides, and ice skating! 

There are plenty of other ideas and things to do depending what you are looking for and your tolerance for chilly weather but these are some I think are a great start for a first Christmas in Austin! 

Travel Days: Orlando – New Years Eve

I know I have been saying I will post this for a few months now but I am getting my life together and so here we go!

I love to travel and you can check out some of those recent trips Mexico, Cruising & Denver: Red Rocks! I still need to post about the rest of the Denver trip and get my old posts together so I can share all my different Asia trips.

But today we have celebrating New Years in Orlando!
First things first…some things I want to share.
  • If you want to see the fireworks over the castle go the night before. They do the exact same thing and even count down like its really NYE. **Listen to this warning unless you plan to be in line at Magic Kingdom at 6 am on NYE and hope you get in.
  • Tickets to Orlando for NYE were effing expensive. Everything was expensive.
  • You can bring food into Disney parks…just no glass. Bring food. or spend $50.00 on a lunch for two people.
  • Staying off the Disney resorts afforded us a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment for 1/4 of the price of the Disney resorts (even w/the added price of taking ubers back and forth) We stayed at Polynesian Isles Resort
  • Book your fastpass ASAP. Unfortunately we did not purchase our Disney tickets until 1 week before the trip so there were no free times for any of the rides that were convenient for us.  You can book a minimum of 30 days ahead. do it.

Now the fun part! 

We hopped off the plane, got checked into our hotel and right into an uber to Magic Kingdom where we stayed until the 1:00 am.

 The fireworks were beautiful…as you can see! 100% worth going the day before to see them!
On NYE we started the morning at Animal Kingdom.We ended up waiting 3 hours in line for the Flight of the Avatar ride. I am not usually one to wait in a long line but the weather was nice (high 60’s) it was sunny, and I wanted to check it out!
It was awesome and so worth the wait!
Then..we headed from there to Epcot to walk around and wait for the countdown. I am not sure what I was expecting since I have been to Epcot before but it was really amazing to see each  country had its own little party going on. We ended up finding a spot in Italy since they had a huge stage and dance party going.
I have no idea why I can’t find the photos of the fireworks…I know  Thenewguy took video but I was just so excited and exhausted that I put my phone down and enjoyed the moment and the music.
Next time I will share the photos from our New Years Day at Universal Studios!

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