Without a doubt the holidays are a great time to visit the parks, especially to see the classics that give us the comfort and joy the season brings. This is the only time i’ll do It’s a Small World, I love The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay on the Haunted Mansion (even if I think the Christmas element should be added AFTER Halloween). I love the little decorations for each land and hearing the seasonal soundtracks. It makes the time more magical.
But now it’s time for a hot take: A Christmas Fantasy Parade is tired and needs to retire for good.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with it and I do love the song that plays with each float. It’s a nostalgic part of the Disneyland holiday season that brings me back the memories of coming each December. But it’s also a reduced version of a classic. It’s no secret that the park’s entertainment has been scaled back further than it needs to be. I’m not gonna make this a case of “Damn the Bean Counters”, because it’s been that way for a while and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
I will make a case in which I think that modern Imagineering can create a new, even better parade than one we’re stuck with. Paint the Night is essentially a modern Main Street Electrical Parade and even though we haven’t seen it in a while, it’s a still a technical marvel that showcased how tired and dated the older parade was. Paint the Night took a lot of the elements that made the Electrical Parade great and improved on it. They incorporated new lighting technology, it gave us a good soundtrack, they brought in more current Disney characters without forgetting the classics, and it even kept in the Baroque Hoedown as a tribute. This was the best way to bring the “theme park night parade” to the modern era while giving us the charm that the old parade brought.
I think that the same mindset could give us a great modern Christmas parade.
I would understand a major reluctance to retire A Christmas Fantasy. Years ago, I even saw a pitch for a new Christmas parade on Micechat and that guy got a lot of responses like “NOOO!!!” and “Christmas Fantasy is like family!”. I honestly thought it was an interesting idea.
But why not see what Imagineering could bring to a new Christmas parade? wouldn’t t be great if Toy Story got a REAL Christmas float to itself, and not the leftovers from Pinocchio? What about incorporating The Nightmare Before Christmas? Or Coco? Or Frozen? Or even A Muppet Christmas Carol? I can even see Disney coming up with some unique floats for the North Pole and Santa.
They don’t even need to remove the Christmas Fantasy song. They can still incorporate it while bringing in a new soundtrack.
What do you think?
