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thekimmiandjackieshow · 8 years ago

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Christmas Day: A horrendous shift and a night with family.

December 25th, 2015.

My family was officially in town for Christmas. Their plans took them to Magic Kingdom on Christmas Day, and I had prepared them for an insane amount of crowds. I warned them to get there as early as possible, because they were known to close their gates due to capacity.

As for me, I was blocked out of Magic Kingdom for the day. When Disney expects larger crowds, they try to help those crowds out by blocking out Cast Members and those who pay for the cheaper annual passes. I had managed to score a beautiful shift. I think it was something like 6:15am-1:15pm. While it was an early shift, it was short and sweet. It was also in Animal Kingdom, while most of the crowds were going to be in Magic Kingdom. My family had decided to meet up with me in the evening for dinner at the hotel, cutting their Magic Kingdom day short so they could spend the holiday with me. I went off to work, interested to see how the day would go.

I’ve worked on Christmas day several times in the past. During my college years, I worked in Downtown Disney, California. They had the same holiday work requirements, so if I wasn’t scheduled to close on Christmas Eve, I was likely scheduled to open on Christmas Day. It meant that my family was used to planning the holidays around my schedule. It also meant that I was used to cutting my time short with them so I could head off to work. While leaving for work was never easy, working on the holiday itself never particularly bothered me. It was crowded so time flew by, and guests were usually in a pretty cheerful mood. They were also usually thankful that you were spending the holiday working instead of being with your family. The holidays were some of my favorite days to work.

But not this time. This time, my shift was one of the worst shifts of my fall program.

I parked my car directly across from Jackie’s, thankful again that we had the same shift. Not to get too off topic here, but the leaders never liked when we worked together. Our work location was pretty lenient about letting Cast Members talk to each other on stage. In the middle of every day, our location was really slow. Beyond the random straggler, we’d find ourselves standing in the Oasis by ourselves. Especially in front of the stroller garage, where there was usually a register Cast Member, a person passing out and receiving strollers, another person working the register in a shop next door (and they weren’t allowed to stay inside the shop if there weren’t guests inside), an extra Cast Member to pass out ECV’s to guests who rented them, and two Cast Members that were inside the garage cleaning the strollers (but were forced outside if there weren’t any strollers coming in). This meant that in the middle of the day, when zero guests were coming by, we’d have about six Cast Members standing outside. It was the one time of the day where we all got to breathe, and we usually spent that time chatting with each other. Whenever Jackie and I would talk on stage, we’d get told to stop and that we needed to separate ourselves. We were each even pulled aside, and told that we could talk to other Cast Members but needed to stop talking to each other so much. It was apparent that they thought we were in a relationship, and thought our banter on stage was too much. Regardless, we kept getting scheduled together.

In the days leading up to Christmas, we were allowed to play Christmas music backstage in the stroller garage during our shift. Everybody was talking about the potluck we were going to have, and I had the mindset that this Christmas shift would be a lot like the Christmas shifts I had back home in Downtown Disney. I could not have been more wrong.

The energy in the garage was dead. When I clocked in, Cast Members got right to work preparing strollers. There were no guests lined up outside the park, and I was beginning to think the day was going to be a slow day. The small chatter that started between Cast Members would quickly end as the leader on duty walked by. I dared to ask Ola, the Cast Member next to me, why we weren’t playing any Christmas music. She told me that the leader on duty had decided we shouldn’t be allowed to.

When the park opened, we welcomed fewer guests than we had my entire program. Everybody had the same idea: Head to Magic Kingdom on Christmas Day. This left us with rows of clean strollers and nobody to hand them out to. After welcoming probably ten guests into the park, we sat there with nothing to do. So of course, we asked our leader again if we could play Christmas music. Nothing. No response. She didn’t even want to talk to us today. Somebody wasn’t having a very merry Christmas.

It was too early for the potluck to be started and there was zero Christmas cheer in the air. We all started to get really bitter about the whole thing. Nobody likes working on the holidays but it doesn’t have to be terrible. In fact in most situations, people try to make it as fun as possible.

Not at DAK Strollers.

We started to get sick of the absolute silence and wished that we were able to get more into the Christmas spirit. Asking politely was getting us nowhere, and we thought maybe if the leader on duty understood that this was something we all collectively wanted, they’d finally give in. Several of us walked by their open office door, passive-aggressively saying things like, “I wish we were allowed to play Christmas music! That would really help bring up the overall mood!”.

It didn’t work.

As Ola and I cleaned the strollers, we joked that we should just start singing the Christmas songs ourselves. I walked off to get more towels and cleaning solution, but in the distance I could hear Ola screaming “SIIIILEEEENT NIIIIIGHT” in her thick accent. Jackie and I about fell over from laughter.

That too, quickly ended with the leader walking up to Ola and telling her that it was inappropriate and unprofessional. With the stroller garage door always remaining partially open, it was possible for guests to hear her and it would take away from the show. With a sigh, we stopped singing Christmas songs and waited for time to pass.

Several hours later and the occasional guest stopping by, we declared it as the slowest day in DAK history. I had never seen the Oasis so empty in the morning as I did on Christmas day. I could only imagine how packed Magic Kingdom was, and I suddenly wished I was there. I imagined it was a lot like working in busy Downtown Disney on Christmas. Something about crowds and long lines really gets my energy up.

As afternoon hit, we got word that the leader on duty was finally off for the morning and had left. It didn’t take long for us to persuade the new leader into playing Christmas music backstage. People were pulled from their positions to help move ECV’s and set up tables backstage for the potluck. The food was starting to come out and more people arrived. The atmosphere changed almost instantly, and suddenly instead of having a ton of grouchy Cast Members, we were all mostly happy to be there.

Jackie and I clocked out at the same time, but decided to stay for some food and socializing backstage before heading out. We whispered the stories from that morning to the Cast just coming in for the day, all of them glad that a new leader had come in with a different attitude. After everybody started clocking in and the tables were mostly empty, Jackie and I walked out to our cars together.

While it was the worst Christmas shift of my entire life, I was at least glad to have shared it with some of my favorite people. We were all bitter about it, which brought us closer together. I wished Jackie a Merry Christmas and a safe drive, and she drove off towards St. Pete. I went back to an apartment that was completely empty. Everybody was either at work for the day or out with friends and family.

I had a million things to get done, but of course with the holiday, everything was closed. I couldn’t even go to the Clubhouse to get my temporary housing ID that I needed for extending my program. Instead, I went out to Walgreens, thankfully still open for the day, for some wrapping paper and wrapped my sister’s gift. My siblings and I all do a gift exchange so that we each only buy one gift for each other. It saves money and means that each person gets one meaningful gift instead of a bunch of cheaper things. I was giving my sister a ticket to Universal Studios Orlando (since she was coming down to the area again in the spring for a conference). To give her something physical that she could enjoy, I gave her a chocolate frog and a ticket for the Hogwarts Express. My idea was to tell her that this ticket was a real ticket for the Hogwarts Express, and that she was going to Diagon Alley. I did learn a hard lesson with this though: wrapping chocolate frogs is nearly impossible.

Time passed quickly and my family would soon be getting home from Magic Kingdom. I made my way over to Port Orleans Riverside to meet them as they got off the bus. It was an incredibly humid day and they all looked exhausted, but I wanted to hear what their thoughts were.

We walked into the main dining area of the resort and had a quick service dinner. It wasn’t about the food or having a fancy Christmas dinner. It was just nice that we were able to spend a few hours of the holiday together.

We went back to their rooms and exchanged gifts with each other. Katy got me a calendar for my apartment, where each month had pictures of friends and family from past years. She matched the pictures to the months so it was like my own TimeHop calendar. It was perfect. My older sister, Megan, loved her Universal surprise. She had been to Universal before during her program, but Diagon Alley wasn’t open yet. To me, that was the best part and I knew that as much as I loved it, she’d love it even more. I couldn’t wait to take her!

After all was said and done, I went back to my apartment to pick up some things. I was going to be staying the night at Port Orleans Riverside with Katy, so I had to pack a bag. I brought Megan along with me so she could see the apartment. She had been inside Patterson before, though on her program she lived in Vista Way. I walked in at the perfect time, finding some of my roommates sitting by our Christmas tree, ready to open presents. We had each gotten each other gifts and things as well, but we were rarely home around the same time. Brielle didn’t want to wait any more, so we opened the presents from each other and waited to open the rest until Joy and Molly could be home.

I wished them all a Merry Christmas, thanked them for everything, and packed a small bag before Megan and I went back.

Despite starting the day with a terrible shift, I was so thankful for all the amazing people that had come into my life in 2015. I survived the shift because of my amazing coworkers and was lucky enough to a small Christmas in 5102. This was all after my family had left Magic Kingdom early, skipping their one chance at seeing the electrical parade and the Christmas fireworks, to make sure I could have dinner with them. It was an unconventional Christmas to be sure, but I was thankful for the Christmas I had.

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