One of the best moments of our Christmas vacation was when our family participated in the daily Macy's Holiday Parade at Universal Studios' theme park.

We were able to help escort one of the huge balloons and it was tremendous fun to "steer" the balloon as part of about a dozen people assigned to it.

Everyone at Universal treated us very courteously and this was the high point of our week in Orlando.

We're still very enthusiastic about the Disney theme parks, but Universal seems to have studied what Disney did right and wrong.

Universal works hard to make a day at their parks very positive, fun, and memorable.

Eibhlin MacIntosh, artgrrl@hotmail.com