Christmas 2021

3 of us in front of Little Havana sign in Miami

 It was agreed early in 2021 that we would get together this Christmas in Miami.  At the time, Jeff and I thought we would be returning from a cruise to the Amazon River to Miami days before Christmas itself.  The cruise did not happen - so 2021 there, but our get together did.

We realized it was significantly cheaper for Cierra to fly from DC to Orlando on the 21st then to Miami on the 23rd so the three of us met up in Orlando and spent a day at Epcot.  Then we drove the rest of the way to Miami in a rather full car since it had Christmas decorations and a bunch of wrapped presents on top of our suitcases.

Cierra had chosen Epcot to visit which was good since it was the only park we could get entry for - Disney limits guests to each park these days so you must reserve your spot ahead of time and week ahead only Epcot had room.  We stayed near Disney's downtown restaurant and shopping district (Disney Springs) and enjoyed dinner there each night first at a seafood place then at a barbecue restaurant the second night.

 This is how we spent our day in Epcot:  occasional ride, eat, drink, wander to next country pavilion, drink, next country, eat, drink, explore on repeat all day.  At Christmastime, Epcot has some special food offerings which we had to check out.  Most were small and we often shared.  Along with the food was special drinks both alcoholic and non.  There is also an annual cookie stroll which of course we did.  We bought 5 cookies in 5 different countries and received a 6th for free.  We shared all cookies 3 ways and actually kept the last one till the end of our vacation and split it up then.  We started with a snickerdoodle made with a Snickers bar which was probably the least favorite for Cierra and me.  We moved onto a gingerbread man, a linzer, red velvet crinkle, and a black and white cookie.  The reward was a sugar cookie shaped like Mickey ears iced in honor of the 50th anniversary of DisneyWorld.  Below are some of our photos from Disney World.

Jeff and I finally made it to England!

Our "reward" cookie from the cookie stroll

So all of this food was small bites from outdoor temporary food stands so some of the food and drink we had was good and some were misses mostly because the dish just wasn't meant to be cooked and then reheated.  I think it was France where we started our noshing.  I know I had a sparkling drink and a salmon napoleon which while nice but not flaky dough but more of a bun for me and Jeff and Cierra had a potpie type dish which they thought was just okay too. 

We also saw Santa, Father Christmas and Pere Noel

We did do some non-food things too!  We started the day at Soarin which is a family favorite and enjoyed it.  We did the 360 degree movies in Canada and China.  We rode the 3 Amigos ride in Mexico, and we managed to get seats for Remy the new ride late in the evening.  Remy is based on the Disney movie Ratatouille and is a great ride.  If you don't know Remy is a rat who is a great cook, but alas not everyone wants a rat in their kitchen, so our car (a teacup) felt like we were sneaking along at times and then running for our lives at other times.

We also attended the Christmas music program they had.  It was nice, but not great.  Cierra's comment was she felt like we were at a televangelists' Christmas show at times.

Next day onto Miami to pick up Kevin and mom at the airport and check in at our hotel.  I say hotel which it is, but the hotel is in a building shared with a condo complex so we actually had a 3-bedroom condo and a hotel room.  The condo had a nice big balcony that looked out on Biscayne Bay.  We enjoyed watching the boats especially the ones that went out to a small island to hang out for the day.  We noticed one very unique thing - a food truck on a pontoon boat.  Unfortunately, it was too far away for us to get it in a picture to share.  Oh, we also saw a couple of manatees in the bay below our condo.  In addition to hanging out at the condo, we went on a couple of tours, had a couple of nice meals, saw neighborhood Christmas lights and explored Little Havana.

Manatees - seen from our balcony

also seen from balcony - look in middle of white foam is a man fly boarding 

in front of Christmas tree in building lobby

our Christmas tree and bear

The next photos are all from our airboat ride in the Everglades

I missed the message to take my mask off!

anaconda bird - snake bird

alligator found

The next couple of photos are taken from our cruise around Biscayne Bay - got to see the fancy houses from the water.

Christmas Eve Dinner at Bellmont Spanish Restaurant was a multicourse pre fixe menu dinner with wonderful live music.  Take a listen below.

We wandered around Little Havana some during the day and had lunch.  Jeff, Cierra and I went back down for lunch that night.

enjoying Cuban drinks - Jeff and me had mojitos and mom had strong Cuban coffee

The restaurant (Ole Havanna) that the 3 of us ate at that night had good food and even better decor.  The jukebox was right by our table and Cierra and I are each at our table.

One last family Christmas picture - in Little Havana

If you ever visit Miami at Christmas time, I highly recommend looking up neighborhoods for lights.  All of these pictures are from one small neighborhood that has been decorating to extremes for years.