Were you there over the same days this year? We have been earlier in the month, but never over Christmas. I have read a lot about the crowds, but the boys and DH wanted to go back for the decorations again.
Yes, we were there this Christmas from December 20th thru 26th. We donated a tree for the tree exchange and had a tree for the room. We had a lovely drive from the Houston area and really loved the trip-that's why we wanted to do it again.
The crowds weren't too bad for us. We had wonderful weather and really enjoyed ourselves.
The weather was perfect except one night. It was really cold on a night we went to Epcot-we pop in a lot because of how close it is to the Boardwalk. That night the weather hampered the Christmas Processional so bad they were 'begging' people to sit in the seats-we hadn't planned on going but heck, no wait and great seats the music and story were wonderful. We didn't make it through the whole show because of the wind and cold.
We left the parks early each day and enjoyed other parts of the resort. We collected our FP's during the day and went back if we wanted to ride some rides later in the evening when we went for Fireworks or shows. We even gave a lot of the FP's away when we knew we weren't going to use them.
We really enjoyed the decorations and the Osburne(sp) Lights and never waited in a line longer than 20 minutes in any park(this included Toy Story Mania).
We had a wonderful time except for the Wishes Fireworks on Christmas Eve. Really

(crowded) and some of the people we dealt with were

(ya' know what I mean

)
It was basically rude people stepping on or in front of little kids to get a good view
We got to the Rose garden early were standing with DD up against a railing and a man shoved and stepped right in front of my DD so he could 'see better' and get good pictures. DD just got a camera for Christmas and wanted to take pictures too. He knew he shoved her out of the way and that we saw him.
I asked him to move since she had been there for an hour waiting for that specific spot and just because he was older (and bigger than an 11 year old) he had no right to behave that way(he wasn't older or bigger than DD's mom(or GM)-mistake for him

).
He wasn't too happy with me

go figure but he moved when my DM stepped up with me. We will just make sure and go on a different night and maybe have a GG next time.
Really, It was just a blip on our vacation-we don't let others spoil our trip it just proved to DD that you have to speak up sometimes.
I hope we and you have just as good a time as we had last year. Hey, maybe we should arrange a GG

it might be fun.
Pack you patience and you will have a great time too!
