Christmas at Disneyland: 2021 Edition
Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA
On this Christmas Eve, we’re making up for a year of barely posting from the Disneyland Resort by gifting you a mega-post of holiday time photos from the Happiest Place on Earth. Yes, in this update, we have nearly 250 photos taken from Disneyland Park during the Yuletide season. I’ll try to keep the text to a minimum (or you can just scroll past it), since the focus is on the sights around the park. Enjoy the eye candy before you indulge in your own feast with your loved ones. And thanks for sticking around while we’ve navigated a very strange past couple of years!
Mickey and Friends Holiday Cavalcade
We’ll start things off with a bit of entertainment… during the daytime, there’s a little Christmas cavalcade by Mickey Mouse and his friends that proceeds up Main Street and the parade corridor. It’s not an actual parade, just a moving photo op with Disney characters dressed in their finest. But it’s cute, and guests can catch it in the early afternoon hours.
Mickey Mouse provides a salutation during the Holiday Cavalcade.
Various classic Disney characters also join in the Christmas procession.
Minnie caps off the short but charming holiday line!
A Christmas Fantasy Parade
The actual parade is A Christmas Fantasy, which, come to think about it, is Disneyland’s current oldest seasonal parade (as long as you ignore classic, retired parades being repeatedly dug up for superficial marketing purposes). It was twenty five years ago that this elaborate noel celebration replaced A Very Merry Christmas Parade. With its trumpeting toy soldiers, merry snowmen, Disney characters dressed in winter garb, and of course, Santa Claus, A Christmas Fantasy has become a classic part of the Disney Christmas landscape. Plus, it’s a pretty lengthy parade too, especially compared to the park’s more recent offerings.
The parade plays twice a day, at 2:00pm starting from It’s a Small World and at 4:30 starting from Main Street’s Town Square.
Once that familiar musical refrain and the teddy bear and wind-up music box dancer come, you know it’s time for A Christmas Fantasy.
Just don’t forget how repetitive the parade theme is, and what an ear worm it also is!
Christmas on Main Street
Speaking of Main Street, this really is the heart of the holidays at Disneyland. With its towering Christmas tree, hanging garlands over the street, beautiful wreaths lining each lamp post, and classic holiday decorations, Main Street evokes the Christmas of decades past, creating a charming, turn-of-the-20th-century ambiance that really drives home that nostalgic Christmas spirit.
The holiday ambiance on Main Street is unmatched.
Already gorgeous on its own, Main Street becomes even more enchanting with its various Christmas adornment details.
Of course, when night falls, the magic grows even brighter and more colorful, as all the twinkling string lights turn on, and snowfall (snoapfall) blankets the area at the conclusion of the Believe… in Holiday Magic fireworks show (unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to photograph that this season). It’s no surprise this beauty keeps guests lingering even long after park closing. It’s just too magnificent to let go!
Things only become more marvelous at night.
The Christmas tree in Town Square is popular all the way through the closing of the park—and then some!
Plaza Point
At the north end of Main Street, where the Kodak Camera Store used to be located, a new holiday boutique called Plaza Point has opened. Though it is primarily themed to Christmas, it will offer seasonal holiday decorations and ornamentation. The interior is quite charming, with richly furnished holiday displays that capture an opulent Victorian feel.
The interior of Plaza Point is sumptuously decorated.
Do you like dolls? If not, um, sorry.
They really did a fantastic job with the interior decor here!
Christmas in Adventureland
The holidays used to be more extensive in Adventureland, especially when the Jingle Cruise was still providing winter slapstick gaudiness. Alas, these days, the only sign of December 25th is a creative Christmas tree at the second floor queueing area of the Jungle Cruise. This is better than nothing, but it would be great to see Adventureland decorated in holiday lights again, similar to how parts of Hong Kong Disneyland’s Adventureland are during this time of year.
The Adventureland Christmas tree by day.
The Adventureland Christmas tree by night.
It’s got great little details, like coconut snowmen and piranha ornaments and banana garland, plus a rudder as the star atop the tree!
Christmas in Frontierland
Frontierland offers a more rustic holiday, with garlands and holly and green decorations that fit in with the Old West theme. Simple warm white string lights line the facades, and inside the Gold Horseshoe, a piano player entertains guests at various points in the day with Christmas carols on the keys. Frontierland isn’t that elaborate during the holidays, though it is more so compared to Adventureland. But it’s still pleasant.
The Golden Horseshoe is home to musical entertainment.
A piano player entertains diners inside with Christmas tunes.
The holiday theming isn’t too elaborate, but it’s very fitting.
And it’s pleasant at night too.
Too bad they don’t decorate this tree for Christmas like they do for Halloween!
Christmas in New Orleans Square
New Orleans Square brings a Crescent City Christmas vibe that’s full of celebration, as illuminated garlands line the second floor wrought iron balconies, creating a beautiful atmosphere, especially at night. During the daytime, Jack and Sally also come out for photo ops above the Royal Street Veranda.
Jack and Sally greet guests below in New Orleans Square.
Royal Street is even more gorgeous during the holidays!
And of course, we can’t forget the Haunted Mansion Holiday, which continues it run from Halloween Time through the winter break, because it’s what happens when two holidays collide! This year is also special in that the Haunted Mansion Holiday is celebrating it twentieth year of overlying the Haunted Mansion. These days, it’s hard to imagine the Mansion having anything but Jack wrecking its halls for the latter third of the year!
Sally daydreams about Christmas inside the Haunted Mansion Holiday, and frankly we get it.
Christmas in Critter Country
Critter Country also offers a rustic holiday feel, with red ribbons and evergreen garlands lining the Splash Mountain queue building. This is also where guests can meet Santa Claus and take a picture with jolly old St. Nick. COVID policies are still creating a bit of a social distancing celebration between Santa and guests, but it is still a wonderful experience and opportunity for the little ones!
Critter Country also has a woodsy Christmas feel, somewhat similar to Frontierland.
Christmas in Mickey’s Toontown
We’d be remiss to ignore Mickey’s Toontown, which is undergoing a massive renovation next spring that will shut down the entire land until the first half of 2023, when Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway will open. Besides giving Toontown a massively needed fresh coat of paint and face lift, the improvements will also create a new Toontown Park (even though Toontown technically already has one) that will introduce new and interactive play elements for kids and families.
Hi, there, Mickey! Toontown has more socially distanced photo ops for guests to partake.
But for now, Toontown is decorated for Christmas like it normally is, minus the parts partially demolished or behind work walls for the next Disneyland attraction. And it’s cartoonishly cute how Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and company have decorated their abodes! (Well, except for Chip n Dale, whose Treehouse will be removed during the expansion and reportedly making way for a pathway link to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.)
A bit of the Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway show building can be seen in the background, though this will be screened eventually.
The holiday decorations are very colorful and sort of ostentatious!
Christmas in Fantasyland
Finally, we come to Fantasyland, the heart of the park. For the holidays, we once again have Sleeping Beauty’s Winter Castle looking over the top by day but gleaming and magical by night. The re-roofing and refurbishment that took place at the castle last year have yielded some cool illuminated gem turret tops, and they really pop at night! The castle has also received a fresh coat of paint and has a slightly different color scheme noticeable by sharp eyed and frequent guests by day.
I still think the Winter Castle could look better during the day. Maybe just go full snow? But I guess the idea is that the SoCal sun partially melts it off during the day.
The castle does look great, though—front and back!
Then there’s also It’s a Small World Holiday, which began the holiday season inauspiciously flooded and not even knowing if it would be able to open for this Christmas time. Fortunately, through the tireless efforts of the Disneyland maintenance staff working night and day, the beloved attraction was able to open a few weeks ago in its full holiday celebratory glory!
It’s a Small World Holiday is back and operating this holiday season after an initial delay!
And, of course, the dazzling Winter Castle is a spectacle for the eyes at the end of the night!
And that wraps up this recap of the 2021 Christmas season at Disneyland Park. We crammed a Santa's sack full of picture content, and if you enjoyed it, allow me to cheap plug my Disney blog, Disney Photoblography for more photos like the ones that have been featured here. Merry Christmas, folks. Or for those who don’t celebrate, happy almost-weekend!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
