scrapbunny -
You're welcome! And thank you so much for your post! I'm happy to have been of help in some small way.
Coincidentally, I had been planning to add a link or two to info about the Rose Parade floats in my post on Page 1 regarding other holiday-related things to do in SoCal, so I was happy to see that you posted some info about your experience! You read my mind!
Also, I'm glad that you posted the comment about how not all of the holiday things are up through the whole season (like Santa, for example), until it ends. I have been saying this in different ways for as long as I can remember because I pay a lot of attention to when certain things start appearing for the holidays, and when they disappear. I'm glad to see that someone else is discovering the same thing! It is also a fact that not all of the holiday things are in effect when the season official
begins as well!
Even when the official end of the holiday season is a week into January, that doesn't necessarily mean that
everything will be going on until that time - the hotels will not be decorated quite that long, for instance. The hotels kind of operate on their own separate schedule, and are not really consistent with the parks. The hotels don't get their decorations when the season begins, either!
I knew Santa was gone from all of the hotels by Christmas. In Disneyland he had been spotted at the old Reindeer Round-Up in his 'street clothes' (green plaid) after Christmas, but once the Round-Up became the Jingle Jangle Jamboree I think that changed. And it wouldn't make sense to have Santa at Elias & Company past Christmas if he is gone from all of the other places. (Of course, I am only referring to his 5 specific photo spots and not his appearance in the Christmas Fantasy Parade.)
The Dickens Carolers disappear within a couple of days after Christmas too.
I also think that as soon as New Year's Day is over, Disneyland sort of quietly, sneakily begins to take some things down here and there (and maybe they also stop selling a few of the holiday-specific food items) over the course of the week, but it may be so 'under the radar' and gradual that no one really notices if a wreath is suddenly missing from that spot or a tree is gone from a shop or whatever.
Bret/mvf-m11c was at DLR just over a week ago and he noticed that the giant Christmas lights in A Bug's Land were still there, but that the giant ornaments were gone.
It's a Small World Holiday (and most of the decorations around it) seems to always stay up until just past mid-January.
Of course, the majority of the decorations in New Orleans Square (with the exception of the Christmas-specific things like trees) stay up way past Christmas, into the Mardi Gras celebrations, and then come down in March.
Many people don't care if they miss out on certain things that are not as big of a deal, but I am one who is a stickler for getting the "full holiday experience" if I am going to visit DLR for the holiday season. That means that I want the entire Resort to be in the swing of things. I don't want to think that I missed out on seeing/buying/eating certain things because I went two weeks too early or one week too late. I want the full array of holiday fun, decorations, merriment, music, food and merchandise (there are even some merchandise items that don't hit the shelves at DLR until early December) all throughout both parks, all 3 hotels and Downtown Disney- but preferably not at a time when the crowds are the worst.
So, to go at a time when I am certain everything is up and running and available, but the crowds are not at their peak, leaves me with a narrow window of time in which to take my trips - basically late November - mid-December!
And that's why my trips almost always fall within in that window!