Holiday Magic at the Disney Parks: Celebrations Around the World from Fall to Winter

One of "24 Gifts for the Friend Who’d Rather Be at Disney . . . Because who couldn’t use a little more magic? . . . A visit to Walt Disney World is special any time of year, but the parks come alive in a new way at the holidays, when there is even more lights, music, and merriment. The celebrations at Disney’s parks and cruise ships around the world are captured in Holiday Magic at the Disney Parks, with nearly 1,900 photographs capturing details of the food, entertainment, and decor—down to the resort’s tiniest four-inch-tall Christmas tree.”
—Valerie Marino and Megan Dubois, Condé Nast Traveler | Introduction
 
“Does your heart hold the magic of the holidays? Is it filled with warm memories just waiting to be discovered again? Well, now is the time to open your heart, believe in that magic, and remember those treasured moments. Oh, they’re still there, deep within you, waiting to touch you once more. So come along, as the magic of the season leads the way.”
 
Those words open the Believe . . . in Holiday Magic fireworks spectacular show in Disneyland, and encapsulate the vision for this book rather nicely, too. The fall and winter holiday seasons are, somehow, more than the individual feasts we celebrate—they are an exceptional concoction of feelings, dreams, hopes, reawakened memories, and (perhaps more than at any other time of year) the renewal of traditions. Sounds a bit like the Disney park experience already, doesn’t it? Disney magic and holiday enchantment blend very smoothly—and the resulting cocktail has been delighting Guests for decades. With twelve theme parks and dozens of resort hotels, plus numerous cruise ships, dining venues, and shopping districts, and more than six decades of holiday experiences to look back on, it has been quite a challenge deciding what to include. That’s a lot of pumpkins to cover, and hundreds of Christmas trees to reflect upon, too—from the smallest, at just four inches, to the very tallest at a Disney property (at seventy feet). We have packed in as much as we could: all of the locations; the most significant historical holiday events; the biggest parades, stage productions, and nighttime spectacles; and special holiday menu offerings. Only a few of our own favorites eluded us; we could not find a good photograph of the unique Christmas tree from the opening year in Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park, for example.
 
Like us, you will have your special memories from past holiday visits—and traditions you return to Disney for each year! We certainly hope you will find many of those favorites covered in the pages that follow. So, to evoke those treasured memories most effectively, we have made a conscious decision to use pictures more often than words. The amazing artists and designers who have and continue to create Disney’s decorating magic are telling their holiday stories visually, so we have done the same here as well, retelling those tales with as many photographs as we could squeeze in—almost 1,900 of them between the covers.
 
We are greatly indebted to the photo librarians and archivists all around The Walt Disney Company who allowed us to explore their vaults and pluck the tastiest images in their respective collections for inclusion here. We spent many pleasant hours thumbing through literally thousands of historical slides (most of which have not been looked at in years); as we were mining those wonderful treasure troves of bygone times, we have tried to pick an array of images not seen before—or at least not seen in quite a long time.
 
Almost two thirds of the photographs here, though, were taken just for this book. We have visited every Disney park and resort around the world to see their holiday presentations firsthand, to snap many, many pictures, and, wherever possible, meet the talent behind it all. We flew more than 180,000 miles and took eighty thousand photographs on behalf of this worthy endeavor. A rather pleasant excuse to be globe-trotting, even we must say, although we found ourselves wishing the Halloween and Christmas seasons could last a little bit longer!
 
Whether from an archive or from our own photo shoot, the visuals we have chosen illustrate, as much as possible, the decor, parades, and performances from a Guest’s perspective during operating park hours, to make this as close as possible to your own experiences. Only in a handful of cases did we need to sneak in after hours—mostly for attraction interiors, which would have been difficult to photograph during the day without impeding operations. For some parades and fireworks shows, we were fortunate to get help from the entertainment and media relations teams, too; they let us set up our cameras in just the right spot. Otherwise, what you see here is pretty much the perspective any park Guest would have.
 
Try as we might, though, it’s impossible to create a book like this without being a little bit out of date by the time the presses roll—and it’s published. Disney parks are always changing, and the current holiday celebrations are no exception. As you leaf through these pages, much of what you will see is already history, even the pictures taken quite recently—the decor at that location having been refreshed or the parade updated. A show that we talk about as current may, by now, have closed. We have noted the year each photograph was taken; and where we have found good images of the same setting through the years, we have included them so you can see how it has changed.
 
One final thought before we scan our tickets and head through the turnstiles: we want to acknowledge the many, many people involved in bringing Disney’s seasonal magic to life. Every parad