Disney House Spokane | Don't Blink

After skipping to Myrtle Beach for Thanksgiving last year, we celebrated back in Spokane this year. As always, we enjoyed a special and warm holiday.

Our family during Thanksgiving 2024.

I started my Thanksgiving with an early morning workout at Snap Fitness. I always joke that I need the exercise so I can burn 200 calories only to consume 20,000 calories hours later. I guess other people recognized my absurdity because I had the whole gym to myself.

A photo I took of an empty Snap Fitness gym on an early Thanksgiving morning.

After the conclusion of my workout, I hustled home and cued up the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Sure, we could have watched the tape-delayed NBC broadcast when it came on at 8:30 a.m. PT on the west coast, but we are a little obsessive. Sid, Sloan, Beau, and I jammed in our bed as we streamed the parade live on Peacock right when it started at 5:30 a.m.

Beau holds his stuffed Spider-Man as the actual Macy’s Parade Spider-Man float goes by.

Our next Thanksgiving activity took place at the movie theater. My family met my sister’s family at the Spokane Valley Regal Cinemas for the 11:15 a.m. showing of “Moana 2.” Even though my kids love the film and Sloan even dressed up as Moana for Halloween one year, I had never seen the original movie until last night. Yep, I made sure to do my last-minute homework by watching “Moana” on Wednesday evening. The cram session prepared me well as I was able to enjoy “Moana 2” just as much as everyone else in the packed theater.

Four happy kids after watching “Moana 2.”

From the theater we drove out to my parents’ house in north Spokane. My dad and I watched some of the Cowboys-Giants game and then my sister’s family, my family, and parents enjoyed each other’s company for the duration of the afternoon/evening. Our Thanksgiving meal was delicious as I eclipsed the 200 calories I burned from earlier after my second bite.

Eating Thanksgiving dinner. Delicious!

Once we finished eating, we all moved into the living room where we spent the rest of the night talking and eating dessert. My parents have a single TV in the house that is exiled in the basement, so our family holidays are always centered around conversation which I wouldn’t have any other way. My choice of dessert was pumpkin pie!

Sloan, Beau, and their cousins doing Thanksgiving crafts while the adults visit.

We left my parents’ at 8 p.m. and then before making the 34-minute drive home, we drove by the infamous “Disney holiday house.” It is even better this year than ever before. We made it home around 9 p.m. and went to bed feeling really thankful.

We made a stop at the Spokane Disney house to cap off our Thanksgiving.

I hope you had a satisfying Thanksgiving as well. Can’t write it enough—I am very grateful for my readers. Don’t Blink.

Happy December to one and all! What an incredibly special month. Make sure to savor each day because it will be over (along with 2021) before you know it. Here are tonight’s five topics…

The Disney House Is Back – Last Friday after WSU defeated UW in the Apple Cup, Sid and I took the kids on a short drive to look at Christmas lights. We couldn’t resist taking them to the house that makes us smile every year. If you live in Spokane, head north and visit the infamous “Disney House” in West Glen. I wrote about this magical display in detail seven years ago and it hasn’t lost an ounce of charm since then. In fact, the charm has only increased because now I can share it with Sloan and Beau. The people at this home use Disney cutouts and LOTS of lights to make you believe that you actually are at Disneyland. Make sure to check it out.

A look at the Disney House as we approached it on Friday night. The house is located in north Spokane.

Our House – In a humbler display of Christmas illumination, this is what our house looks like. We once again went with laser lights. The two projectors we own were given to us by David Russell, the video director at Coastal Carolina University and a good friend. He let us take them off his hands in 2016, a year after the laser light phenomenon burst onto the scene in 2015. Those projectors have been with our family for six holiday seasons now and have shined on houses on both sides of the country.

Our house is illuminated by the laser light projectors we received from a friend in 2016.

A Different Way to Countdown to Christmas – Last year, Sloan had a chocolate calendar to mark the days until Christmas. Each day she would punch out a small portion of the calendar and eat a piece of candy. This year we are going more educational and healthier. Instead of counting down with chocolate we are counting down with books. Starting yesterday, Sloan locates a pouch on the advent calendar that corresponds to the day of the month and pulls out the mini book that is inside. We then read it to her. Some books are holiday-themed and some are not. Sloan is an avid reader and this is right down her alley….but to be fair, she is an avid candy eater too.

Sloan holding the Advent calendar she is using to countdown to Christmas this year.

Thanksgiving Dinner – How could I publish this Thursday Rundown without showing a photo of what I ate last Thursday? As usual, our Thanksgiving feast was a good one. People always ask about the lasagna. Here’s the deal: My mom is full Italian and her family always ate lasagna with Thanksgiving dinner growing up. The tradition continued when my mom had her own family. This part of the Thanksgiving meal is so beloved by me that Sidney once made lasagna for one of our South Carolina Turkey Day’s several years back.

You know you wanted to see what I ate for Thanksgiving, right?

Dining Rooms Open at McDonald’s – Here in Spokane, the dining rooms in our McDonald’s restaurants were closed for an extremely long period of time because of the pandemic. Recently, they finally opened back up meaning that Sloan can now eat her coveted Happy Meals inside. It had been so long that I didn’t even recognize the décor and chairs/tables that McDonald’s is now using. Although we prefer to order our fast food from the drive-thru and take it home, every now and then we do find it nice to eat inside. Now that the dining rooms are open we are crossing our fingers that the play places will open soon as well.