The “Twelve days of Christmas” are the 12 days that separate Christmas Day, December 25, from Epiphany, which is celebrated on January 6. Depending on the church, January 6 may mark Christ’s baptism (the Catholic tradition), or it may mark the day that the wise men visited the baby Jesus with their gifts.
Hi Folks, This is Max Schilling, the webmaster here at JHM. As the Christmas season officially draws to a close, I thought that I would share an interesting — and somewhat unfortunate — story of how Disney celebrates the holiday season down here at the Walt Disney World Resort.
A few years ago, “Disney’s Days of Christmas” store opened in at Downtown Disney Marketplace. And as part of the theming for this new store, Disney scattered displays around the store for each of the 12 days of Christmas.
This seems like a really fun idea and it gives a lot of charm to the already well-done decorations. But unfortunately, this being the Walt Disney Company of 2007 and all, the upkeep of this original theming has been lackluster at best.
As of this holiday season, only 8 of the 12 Days of Christmas displays are still fully intact. The amusing part is that — only a few months ago — with the exception of two missing signs, all the original theming was still present. So it seems that — in putting up the seasonal Christmas decorations in this store — WDW’s decorating staff actually replaced and/or removed the 12 Days of Christmas décor that the store is named for & themed around.
Now I understand that this may seems like the typical nit-picky, let’s-take-pictures-of-peeling-paint, Disney Dweeb nonsense that you find all over the Web. But take a step back and look at the big picture here: The store named “Disney’s Days of Christmas” is now missing 4 of the Days of Christmas. So its not like they removed an irrelevant prop, or tweaked a display. In removing those 4 days, they have more or less eliminated the cohesiveness of the story they are trying to tell.
While guests coming into the store, noticing the theming, and searching for all of the 12 days is likely a rather rare occurrence, I am sure it still happens every once in a while (Hell, I did it).
And while it’s certainly not going to destroy anyone’s vacation … A cast-member having to tell a little kid who has just spent the past half hour looking for all of the twelve days that, “Oh yeah, I guess we forgot about days 3, 5, 8 and 9” is not exactly the “good show” that Disney purports to strive for.
On the first Day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
A Mickey in a yule tree
Photo by Max Schilling
The first day of Christmas has Mickey hanging on a swing from a tree in the middle of the store seemingly wound up in Christmas lights.
Photo by Max Schilling
On the second Day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Two Tweedledees
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
On the third day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Three Lil’ Pigs
The third day is a story book with a picture on the cover of the Three Lil’ Pigs. However the sign that once told which day of Christmas this was has been removed and now 2 screw ends are all that remain. It has been this way since at least May of 2006 and likely for much longer.
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
my true love gave to me:
Four chiming bells
The fourth day is a 3D window mural on the back of the store. It features Quasimodo swinging on one of the four bells hanging in the display. Though — with all that garland hanging in front — it’s kind of tough to tell what it is (and tough to photograph). I have a feeling that some of the lights are out in this display. Because I was there at night to take these pictures. And while the rest of the outdoor windows were brightly lit, this one was quite dark. So I had to be kind of creative to get a good shot of this sign.
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Five Minnie things
This is pure conjecture. But I believe that the front window of the store once contained this display. However, it was removed in an effort to at give one of these windows back — the front-most one — to WDW’s marketing department.
In an effort to keep the story that this Downtown Disney store was originally trying to tell intact, a display case was placed right next to the front window containing “5 Minnie things.” And — back in May — there were only 5 Minnie items in this case.
However, in the months since then, it appears that WDW’s decorators decided that this corner of the “12 Days of Disney” store looked too sparse. So they added an additional Minnie doll to the top of the case, thereby bringing the total of “Minnie things” in this area of the shop to six.
But as for the sign that used to be displayed in this section of the “12 Days of Disney” store, that must have been lost somewhere along the way.
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
On the sixth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Six Ducks a-playing
The sixth day is a mural behind one of the counters. As you can tell from the picture below, the sixth day has been, uh, personalized, by the big sign hanging down in front of the mural. It doesn’t really take away from the painting and I guess I am being slightly over critical. But it seems to me the sign could be a tad higher so it didn’t interfere as much with the sight-lines for the mural.
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
On the seventh day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Seven Dwarfs a-mining
The seventh day is another indoor mural behind one of the counters. The seventh day seems to be holding up quite well. Though — in my pictures from May — I was unable to find Sleepy. As they had hidden him behind a stack of bags and boxes waiting for package pickup. (The picture below is from December and only the bottom of the mine car is hidden away)
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
On the eighth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Eight toys a-spinning
The eighth day is one of the displays that has recently been hijacked at the “Disney’s Days of Christmas” store. Originally, there was a display with minimal animation featuring 8 different toys spinning. However — for the 2006 holiday season — the sign was ripped off the wall (and not patched, I might add).
Photo by Max Schilling
And the spinning toys were replaced with a big-ass Christmas tree dropped smack-dab in the middle of this display space.
Photo by Max Schilling
The patch job (or lack thereof) where the sign once hung …
Photo by Max Schilling
On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Nine Genies flying
This day features a nicely painted mural of the genie in nine different costumes.
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
On the tenth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Ten lions leaping
This is another day that was ripped apart. But — for some reason — only the sign was removed (Again for the 2006 holiday season. It was there back in May). The mural of the ten leaping lions is still in place.
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Eleven puppies panting
This display is just inside the front door and is one of the nicer “Days” on display in this WDW store. It features a nice stone fireplace and some chairs in front for tired shoppers.
Photo by Max Schilling
Photo by Max Schilling
On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me:
Twelve fairies flitting
The Twelfth day pays homage to the wrapping & personalization section at the end of the store that has murals of fairies flitting about.
Photo by Max Schilling
In the interests of fairness, I would also argue that the way the Walt Disney Company went about designing the décor of this location was not the smartest of approaches. They filled, not one or two windows, but ALL of the store windows with the 12 days of Christmas theming and left virtually no room for any marketing displays.
So, realistically, I can understand the marketing department taking down the 12-days displays as soon as they need product-display room. Coming from a company that is renowned for shoving ‘product placement’ down your throat, I’m sure the marketing department is none too pleased by not being able to get in and play with the windows because Imagineering has commandeered them for store theming.
So it really seems to boil down to a case of the left hand not knowing (or even more frightening, caring) what the right hand is doing. Disney’s marketing department is focused on selling stuff, and to hell with the theming. And apparently the Imagineering skeleton crew that makes up the Florida office isn’t powerful enough to stop them.
I personally can’t find too much fault with these store windows being used to display merchandise. I mean, they ARE store windows. But the part about this whole thing that bothers me is that — at the end of the day — Disney has left us with half (Okay, 2/3rds. But work with me here, people) a theme.
And when you theme a location like this, where all of the design elements are essential for completing a storyline, reinforcing that theme … You can’t just remove one or two pieces and then hope no one notices. That is just bad show. Disney should either relocate / reinstate the missing days or else take down all of these “12 Days of Christmas” -themed displays down & be done with it.
What do you folks think? Am I being a grouch (or a grinch) for complaining like this about the changes that have been made to “Disney’s Days of Christmas” store? Or given the decorative gimmick of this WDW shop, should all of these displays have been left intact?
Your thoughts?
Photo by Max Schilling