We have been to Disney dozens of times. Last year, we went the week before Christmas - 16th thru 21st. The 16th and 17th were fine, but after that, it was ridiculously crazy. I said if that was the first time I had ever been to Disney, I would never want to go back. Yes, the Christmas decorations are pretty, but in my opinion, you don't get the Disney feel as the rest of the year. You can't do many rides without ridiculous waits - and we refuse to wait in a 2 hour line for anything. Food lines were ridiculous and it was just hard to walk down the sidewalks. We do get up early, go back to the room for mid-day breaks, and go back to the parks til close. But, even with EMH, it was just too stressful.
It's our favorite time of year. We have been several times and have even visited MK on Christmas day and we did not find it that bad.
Two diametrically opposed experiences, which in and of itself is WDW, if you ask me, no matter what time of year. I thought last October was heavenly, but I heard people there saying they would NEVER go during Food and Wine ever again!
I think anybody going to WDW with the rides as their focus might come back disappointed. I don't look at WDW as a ride filled destination, so that may be something to think about and put in a day at Universal or drive to Busch Gardens - it's about 1 hr, 20 min.
OP - are you flying/driving? I think I read that you are staying off property, so you will have likely have a car and can drive to whichever park you wish. Bus waiting will be a non issue. Of course you can use the buses/monorails to hop around, just park your car at the park you want to END your day.
We eat strategically on vacation and sometimes eat less because we're on the go. We may eat a full breakfast at the resort or just have a snack, and have an early CS lunch. You can have TS meals (ie breakfast @ Crystal palace, etc) and still not kill your time. That TS meal lasts us a good long time. We can go till supper w/a snack and then we use CS. We just do 1TS/day at the most. If we stay 7 nights we will have 5-6 TS and we use it to talk about how much fun we are having, what we want to do next, etc. Many of our meals are at dinner, but one is 4 o'clock, late afternoon, one is breakfast and one is HDDR on our first day there which is a no park day. I really enjoyed some of our counter service - AK has great counter service and filling (Flame Tree BBQ) and Columbia Harbor House at MK are two favorites. We actually got good food at Pecos Bill in MK, too. La Cantina San de Angel in World Showcase at Epcot is yummo, too.
I love touringplans.com -- very helpful. We were FastPass fiends! We are going the week before - leaving for home when all the Christmas crowd is coming in - 12/22. Hopefully, we won't get the brunt of it quite yet, but I am fully expecting it to be crowded and have my head tilted in that direction.
We are early risers anyway and will be there at park open, follow the advice at Touringplans and EasyWDW.com and make the best of their suggestions for the things you want to do. You may want to add WaterParks and More to your ticket after you get to WDW, depending on the weather. Sounds like your kids are at that age where they would really enjoy that added bonus.
I am assuming she meant especially for Christmas time. I have heard stories of people waiting at counter service for over an hour,,.for a sandwich during Christmas time.
I've been trying to get Le Cellier for Lunch the middle of December without any luck 
