christmas
Mickey’s Christmas Big Band 2019
Uploaded as part of #virtualDLPNYE4, my virtual new Year’s Eve event reliving #DLPNYE3 in real time one year later as we deal with the complications of 2020 preventing international travel and keeping theme parks closed.
Shot in 4K with Dolby Stereo audio on a Sony Digital Imaging Handycam AX53. Finished on LumaFusion.
Disney’s Christmas Parade 2019
Uploaded as part of #virtualDLPNYE4, my virtual new Year’s Eve event reliving #DLPNYE3 in real time one year later as we deal with the complications of 2020 preventing international travel and keeping theme parks closed.
Shot in 4K with Dolby Stereo audio on a Sony Digital Imaging Handycam AX53. Finished on LumaFusion.
Disney’s Christmas Parade at Disneyland Paris
Celebrate the most special time of year with this full, evening running of Disney’s Christmas Parade at Disneyland Paris – featuring Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Donald Duck, Chip, Dale, Clarice, Duffy, Santa & many more!
Mickey’s Magical Christmas Lights
Disneyland Paris’s Christmas tree lights up to the music in this #Mickey90 version of the Magical Tree Lighting show – featuring Mickey, Minnie & their special guest: Santa Claus!
Christmas Letter 2013
Hi there folks,
It’s once again the season of Christmas, a yearly custom of merriment and gift-giving whose true meaning is, as we all know, the birth of Santa. As is now tradition, whether some of you like it or not, I am sat here writing my annual Christmas letter (in lieu of sending Christmas cards because I feel I can waste far more of your time this way) on the train home. It’s not, like. Moving, but I am ON it.
Now those of you who’ve read one of these before know the drill, to those of you who are new I say…You’ll catch on quick. Those of you who make your own tradition of summarily ignoring this correspondence can return to your miserly ways and less amusing pastimes and continue being miserable sods. See, I can call them that, because they’re not actually reading this.
Because they suck.
But you, dear reader, you do not suck. You are someone who does the opposite of suck. Not, you understand ‘blow’, for that would be just as bad. Let’s go with ‘kick ass’ if for no other reason than the fact I have already typed that.
After last year, a corker [not really sure why I’m using that expression, having never knowingly done so before in my life] by any measure I expected the general theme of this year’s letter to be that of disappointment brought on by 2013 being rather akin to the band that had to go on second – after The Beatles.
Instead, as it happens, 2013 was a pretty damn good year. It was punctuated by incredible highlights for our entire country (My Graduation) and for me personally (Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, which also won me the first sporting bet I ever placed!).
Of course there were dark times too, such as Sebastian Vettel turning Formula 1 into a form of torture specifically designed to affect people who like something called ‘drama and excitement’ in sports – AKA, every sports fan in history.
Except baseball fans. Who apparently enjoy mind-numbing tedium. A trait they share with cricket fans, coincidentally.
Meanwhile, closer to home, I left mine to take up employment in London for Britain’s premier pay-TV provider, Sky (™, Believe in Better®), which has been a delight. Even if I still remain relatively dazzled by how big London is.
I mean, it’s really big. You may think it’s a long walk down the road to the chemist, but that’s peanuts to London. Listen…
Oh, I’m sorry, I appear to be plagiarising a beloved work of comedy science fiction. That…Does tend to happen some times with me. I blame the parents. Mainly because it’s my dad’s copy of the aforementioned beloved work of comedy science fiction I read.
At this point, those of you who are new to these letters have likely begun to cry out in despair that this is all a colossal waste of time. A glorious, preposterous, unjustifiable intrusion on your otherwise perfectly adequate free time.
To which I say….
I can’t actually HEAR you, you know. It’s just a letter I’m writing on the train (which, incidentally, is now moving and has been for at least six minutes – yes, it takes longer than five minutes to write this. I take real care with my trivial pointlessness).
If it makes you feel any better, one time when I was writing one of these it started to snow. I don’t see that happening this time, but hey maybe it’s started snowing where YOU are in the seven hours since you started reading this unconscionable wall of impenetrable prose. Run to the window and check.
Meanwhile, those of you who did NOT check, I can tell the sad reality: there’s very little chance it will be snowing when they check.
Ah, back are you? No snow? Shame.
Still…
Merry Christmas and all that…
Your pal
(/son/brother/other relative/mortal enemy/some guy)
Paul Douglas
Christmas Letter 2012
Seasons Greetings, Letter Recipients!
So here we are again, me writing a needlessly rambling and (allegedly) amusing recap of the year along with seasonal well-wishes in place of sending Christmas Cards; and you, [Your Name Here], rolling your eyes/skimming through it briefly/hunting out any fodder it provides to respond mockingly (Delete as Appropriate).
As you can see, the letter is mildly customisable this year, so…You know…enjoy that, I guess.
2012 sure was intense. I for one was concerned we’d all had it when that plane with John Cusack and Amanda Peet on it was engulfed by the pyroclastic flow from that volcano…
Wait that doesn’t uh…That doesn’t sound right…
That was the movie wasn’t it?
Crap.
Ummmmm…2012 the year was the one with the South Korean bloke dancing weirdly on YouTube, right?
Well that was pretty good too. And in an added bonus, in the year we all get to live, and not just the people who made it to the comically oversized and suspiciously well-hidden ships like in the movie.
And living was worth it, because we got to see Wiggo, Andy Murray, Jess Ennis, Mo Farah et al make this pretty much the best year ever for British Sport. If you’re from some other country you probably care less about that. I on the other hand thought it was awesome and I am clearly objective (he wrote, shamelessly wearing his Team GB London 2012 Tennis T-Shirt).
But if the very British Olympics is what caught our viewing attention this year, our musical tastes were captivated by some very different styles. There was the aforementioned fit of global insanity, Gangnam Style. To paraphrase a great movie, a million record sales isn’t cool. You know what’s cool?
A BILLION YOUTUBE VIEWS.
Oh mankind, your priorities are amazing.
But it wasn’t just crazed Koreans. There was the year’s other ear worm too, the anti-Friday, proving that if 2011 was a year of cynicism then 2012 was going to be about boundless, unashamed joy (perhaps because we were all pretending to believe there was even a tiny chance the world would end in December even though the reality is nobody’s actually that stupid).
Yes, Canadia have finally made up for Bryan Adams (For whom their government has apologised on a number of occasions) with Call Me Maybe. Which seemed perfect fodder for a One Hit Wonder, but then Carly Rae Jepsen did that song with Owl City and we all went “huh, I guess she’s sticking around after all…I’m okay with that.”
Yeah, it was a good year. The Newsroom debuted this year, The Dark Knight Rises AND Avengers Assemble came out over the summer and now we’ve got The Hobbit.
Myself, I turned 21. Which is…Weird. And I also finally made it to Walt Disney World, which is basically like heaven if you’re me, so…Yeah. Good times.
I was a bit worried things might have been taking a turn when the Yellowstone National Park Super Volcano erupted in Woody Harrelson’s face, but it all worked out.
Wait.
That was the movie again, wasn’t it?
…Uhhhh…
Never mind then.
So anyway, here’s to a great year, the year that was (and – for a little while longer, I suppose – still is) Twenty Twelve. I had a blast, so hopefully you did too.
Looking ahead to the new hotness of 2013, I have to go find an actual job using my training in TV Production and my particular skill in drawing attention to myself when in front of a camera.
…Oh boy, 2013 is going to be tricky, huh?
Eep. Well, anyway, to you my family/valued friend/casual acquaintance/random person reading this by mistake (Delete as Appropriate), I wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
And, in the interests of multiculturalism, Feliz Navidad.
Hah, you thought I was gonna say something politically correct like “Happy Holidays” or “Have a Happy Hanukkah; Kwazy Kwanza; Solemn, Dignified Ramadan etc.” or something like that didn’t you? Well I didn’t, instead I worked in a way to shamelessly add that I started learning Spanish this year for no adequately explored reason.
…And then I wound up saying all those politically correct bits anyway, huh?
Meh.
Your Pal/Relative/Acquaintance/Fellow Human Being – whether you like it or not (Delete as Appropriate)
Paul Douglas
I leave you with these very important parting words:
¡Por favor, manténgase alejado de las puertas!
Christmas Letter 2011
Season’s Greetings Friends, Family & assorted hangers-on!
It’s that time of year once again where many people choose to send each other nice simple Christmas Cards – short, sweet indications that they’re thinking of you at this, the most wonderful time of the year. And, as has become tradition, I am instead wasting your time with this, my annual Christmas Letter, in which I reflect at unnecessary length on the year that was and, of course, the festive season.
So here I am, sitting in the glow of the unnecessarily large Christmas tree in my bedroom with my (infamous, and only partially accurately named) Xmas in Pompey 2 Spotify playlist filling the room with the sounds of Christmas cheer. Which sounds incredibly cheesy, but I’ve always said* it’s not cheesy if you can think of something either as cheesy, or more cheesy, which is also less appropriate for the given situation. And I have:
A Margherita.
Now, with that out of the way, on to the reflecting on the year. And frankly I think nothing this year says more about our modern era than the way that godawful “Friday” song by Rebecca Black infected every facet of our lives over the course of about a month earlier in the year – and it already feels like it’s ancient history.
Either the years are getting longer or we’re finding more ways to do stuff in them. Luckily, Mark Zuckerberg has come up with a way to find out in Facebook Timeline, whilst Twitter continues to give us an avenue to voice our every trivial thought (And say bitchy things about the way candidates on The Apprentice choose to dress). And I for one welcome our new Social Media overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted (Ahem) TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
Speaking of TV, the has been a great year for TV and I can prove it in just ten words:
The Simpsons has been renewed through its twenty-fifth season.
There have of course been some downsides though. The X Factor has unfortunately not been canceled yet, Big Brother was (Unfathomably) brought back and the BBC decided to hand over half their F1 (More on that in a moment) coverage to Sky Sports, which was probably not the best idea considering that they did so right at the same time as the entire country was furious with Rupert Murdoch, News Corp & Sky over the flagrant corruption & use of phone hacking. As own goals go, the BBC pulled off a belter there.
Oh and while I’ve got you, I still say Germany should have won Eurovision again. Yeah, I’m still bitter about that. And what?
Anyway, I said I’d say something about Formula 1. Ignoring the fact Vettel made the whole season rather dull with his overpowered Red Bull car (I really don’t think it’s fair that he gets a car which gives you wings), this was still a cracking year with some all-time classic races, including the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix, the longest race in F1 history (A record it will hold forever as the rules have now been changed to prevent races running as long as that one did).
Also, over the two-year period since Jenson Button joined McLaren, he’s outscored Lewis Hamilton. At the risk of saying I told you so, I TOTALLY FRIGGING TOLD YOU SO.
Ahem…Anywho, I suppose I should say something about some other sports for the sake of balance, but they’re going to have to be eternally true platitudes because I barely pay attention to most of them so er…Manchester United are evil, cricket is dull & tedious, Rugby is vaguely homoerotic etc. etc.
Also if I don’t mention video games, the citizens of Giant Bomb (dot) Com will probably shoot me in the knee with an arrow. I don’t fully get that joke because I never played Skyrim (Too busy playing The Legend of Zelda IN THREE DEE on my 3DS), but they make references to it all the time on Reddit so I guess it must be pretty funny. The biggest thing in games this year for me was probably the return of Pokémon. Oh god how I played a lot of Pokémon.
So then, with that all out of the way, I leave you with this topical reference to both 2011 & 2012 in the form of a brain teaser:
If you ask Siri to schedule “the end of the world” for December 21, 2012, does that make you God if the world does end then**?
Have a
Merry Christmas,
Happy Holidays,
Helluva Hanukkah
Perfect Pancha Ganapti***,
Delectable Dies Natalis Solis Invicti***,
Dignified Quaid-e-Azam’s Day***,
Marvellous Malkh-Festival,
Kwazy Kwanzaa,
And a Happy New Year,
Your Pal,
Paul Douglas.
* Not true. I’ve never said that.
** No, no it doesn’t. That would be stupid.
*** Look it up.
Christmas Letter 2010
Dear family; friends; casual acquaintances; people who I don’t know reading this online and Google Spiderbots,
It’s that time of the year again. You know? The most wonderful one. That one. Christmastime. Yeah? You probably noticed what with all the pretty lights and tinsel and goodwill to all men and sudden inexplicable rise in quality of television. Which also means it’s time for me to write my Christmas Letter, a tradition which – despite the protestations of many – shows no signs of ending. You know? Like mince pies.
Now for some of you this is your first time receiving one of these letters, and some of you who have received one before have preposterously short atten…Oh hey look, a bunny rabbit!
Where was I? Oh right, explaining the letter.
Every year, I sit down and ask myself a simple question: “What kind of year has it been?”.
Then, in the letter, I ramble on and on, at times quite tediously, in answer. And because I’m a wacky goofball, I usually litter it with jokes. Mostly the stuff I didn’t have time to say in the year that was. Why? Because why the hell not, that’s why.
So anyway, let’s set about answering that question. What kind of year has it been? Well…A damned long one! I don’t know about you, but January 2010 feels like so long ago I can barely remember it. Maybe it’s the quite preposterous number of things which happened this year, or the way everything seems to have changed, or maybe it’s the fact I’m a Student and therefore have consumed what is surely a dangerous amount of alcohol.
No, just kidding folks. The only DANGEROUS amount of alcohol is none.
Just think, this time last year, me and many of my peers were waiting around for the sadistic system known as “UCAS” to let us know our fate. I was in College and almost all my friends were 17, which means there was no nightlife to speak of.
How times have changed.
And look at all the other stuff. This year, amongst the achievements to my name are, sleep (Drunk) in a Disneyland Paris Hotel bathroom; move to University; spend an hour on a stage telling my fellow College leavers how awesome we are; go to Prom with a date AND pass Year 13 whilst basically sleeping through most of the Exam period – thank YOU inexplicably high marks in January Exams*!
*Seriously, I have no idea why they were so high. I thought I’d failed them.
Yes, it’s been one hell of a year. A year in which I, repeatedly, discarded almost all of my hair and started reviewing drinks on the internet for…Some reason. You know now that I write that down, it seems even weirder…Still…Go watch those reviews…
Still, by far the most exciting part of the year was moving to Portsmouth where, to paraphrase a song, I’ve got some friends that I may hardly know, but we’ve had some times I wouldn’t trade for the world.
Man, I hate it when people pretend to be deep by using the lyrics of a song, don’t you? Doesn’t that just make you want to punch them in the face? Well please don’t do that, I’m still typing. It’s hard to type with broken glasses and a black eye you know. I speak from experience.
Also, some stuff happened in the wider world, but it’s mostly very depressing. But…Uh…Hey, Toy Story 3 came out. So it’s not all bad. Oh and they brought Golden Grahams back. Some of you have no idea why that’s amazing, but I assure you, it’s like the best thing that ever happened in the world of cereal.
You know, speaking of Toy Story 3, I saw a lot of good movies this year…So there you go, there’s some good news from the wider world. It was a good year for cinema.
Still reading? Good…A lot of people duck out after the second or third paragraph after they realise I’m just as annoying in writing as I am out loud. In return for your persistence, I have some happy news: IT”S SNOWING! I literally glanced at the window as I was writing this paragraph and it’s started snowing again! on Christmas Eve ! That’s in-freaking-credible!
Yeah, as you may be aware, I never grew up.
I’m still a kid at heart.
Anyway, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time now. Plus I want to get this sent at about Midday. So then…Have a Merry Christmas; Happy Holidays; Happy Hannukah; Kwazy Kwanza; Solemn, Dignified Ramadan and a Happy New Year.
Yours,
Paul Douglas
PS: Okay, NOW you can hit me.
PPS: OW! Hey, it wasn’t mandatory! Jeez.
Mrs. Santa Claus Review
Paul “Jensonb” Douglas celebrates the Christmas season by sitting down to partake in a favourite hobby, watching trashy Christmas movies. Alas, his choice of trashy Christmas movies may have been a bad one in this instance. See what happens next as Jensonb takes on the 1996 Made for TV Musical, Mrs. Santa Claus, starring Angela Lansbury!
TVPaulD.com 