While I love reviewing Christmas movies every year, it does get a little overwhelming by the time the new year rolls around. That is usually why the blog ends up falling to the wayside most of the year. I get overwhelmed, don’t know what to write after the Christmas season, get stuck in my head about what to write, then by the time I know what to write, it’s October and spooky movie season. In an attempt to avoid it this year, I have spent a little more time decompressing from Christmas movies. Here is how I have been spending my days:

Playing Dreamlight Valley. Yes, I am still playing Disney’s Dreamlight Valley. I don’t get a lot of time to play it during the Christmas season so I have been spending the past few weeks catching up on everything going on in my own personal Disney world. There have been two new DLCs since I last wrote about the game. That means I got to spend some time unlocking Gaston, Rapunzel, EVE, Oswald, and Jafar from A Rift In Time, the first DLC. The Storybook Vale, the second DLC, gave us Merida, Flynn Rider, and Hades. On top of that, the main game added Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. (A list of all the currently available characters can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Dreamlight_Valley#Characters) I still have a ton of fun playing the game, even though it takes over my life sometimes.

Watching documentaries. What better way to get out of the Christmas romcom funk then a few tales from real life. Yes, I do watch a lot of true crime documentaries but I also watch ones that are just about interesting stuff. Recently I watched Jailbreak: Love On The Run, Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter, and Biggest Heist Ever. I thought about writing reviews on them, then I decided that I needed some media that was just for me.

Listening to music/podcasts. When I play Dreamlight Valley, I turn off the in-game sound and listen to music or podcasts instead. (A lot of in-game noise bugs me so I rarely play video games with the sound on.) I’ll pop on some Green Day or a random ‘90s playlist on Spotify. I’ve also been listening to the 60 Songs That Explain The ‘90s podcast. (Spoiler alert: They have covered more than 60 songs. And I think they’re currently covering 2000s songs.)

Journaling. That’s right. Sometimes I write for myself. I have a list of journal prompts that I try to do daily, except on weekends. It lets me think a little more about what goes on in my head instead of what is going on on a screen. Journaling may not be for everyone but I find that it does help me get over the romcom hump. Also, I write with fountain pens so I get extra enjoyment from picking out what type and color ink I feel like using. I particularly like shimmer inks, even though they are a pain in the butt. They are awfully pretty.

And that mostly covers it. I am going to try to get back to a regular posting schedule this week. Though I think I might do Tuesdays & Thursdays instead of Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Maybe putting a little less pressure on myself will help me keep going.

I have recently become rather addicted to Disney Dreamlight Valley, a new video game from everyone’s favorite mouse. It is currently in early access, which means there are some bugs to work out. Here, let me tell you about it.

Disney Dreamlight Valley is a simulation game, somewhat akin to The Sims or Stardew Valley. Your character is having a difficult time in life so they return to a play area they frequented as a child. Suddenly, your character is thrust into a world of magic with Mickey Mouse and Merlin. Their world has been overtaken by The Forgotten. It is your job to help them rid the world of evil Night Thorns and bring their Disney friends back to Dreamlight Valley.

While I’m not a huge Disney fan, I was intrigued by Dreamlight Valley when it was first announced. I am a big fan of Stardew Valley so I was happy to hear about another game in a similar format. Though I will admit that I was afraid that the game would be too ‘kiddified’ to be any good. Boy, was I wrong.

One thing that I really love about the game is that you get guidance on how to proceed but you don’t necessarily have to follow that guidance. My husband, my daughter, and I are all playing the game and we have very different play styles. There are two types of quests in the game - Realm Quests (where you are bringing characters back to the valley from their realm) and Character Quests (where you are strengthening your friendships with characters in order to get new things for the valley). The two quests do overlap a little. For example, in order to proceed in Goofy’s quests, you need to bring Remy to the valley. I made it my goal to proceed as far as possible in the Character Quests without doing the Realm Quests. I actually got pretty far before I had to go to any of the other Realms.

My husband, meanwhile, has played the game a little more straightforward. He rescued Remy at the “correct” time and, I believe, has rescued all of the currently available characters from their Realms. I have rescued Remy, Moana, and Maui but, as of this writing, I have not rescued Wall-E. These differences don’t change the game play a lot but rescuing the Realm characters does make some of the other quests a little easier. I just chose a more difficult path.

Now for the bugs. My husband and my daughter have played the game on the Nintendo Switch, while I have stuck to only playing on my PC via Steam. None of us have played on the Xbox or the Playstation. If you are playing on the Switch, the game does crash fairly frequently. Since the game auto-saves every five minutes, you can lose up to five minutes of progress when the game crashes. I haven’t experienced that issue on the PC but sometimes the Disney characters will get stuck in a wall when they are helping you with a task. Sometimes you can fix the issue by transporting your character to another place on the map but sometimes the only fix is to restart the game. Other than those two issues, I don’t think I’ve found any other bugs. Sure, the characters sometimes get in the way when you are trying to do something but that is the life of an NPC.

Everyone in my family has found Dreamlight Valley to be tons of fun. And while it might help to be a Disney fan, interacting with your favorite characters, I don’t think that not being a fan would detract from the gameplay. If you are into sim games, especially Stardew Valley, this is the game for you. There are a lot of similarities to Stardew, except the NPC characters are a lot more interactive. Currently, you do have to pay for the early access to the game. Depending on the edition you choose, it can cost anywhere from $30 to $70. However, the game is supposed to be free-to-play when it goes live in 2023. Either way, I think a lot of people would really love the game. It is a ton of fun.