Disneyland Between Christmas and New Year's

The week between Christmas and New Year's, which apparently everyone else also decided was the week for Disneyland. Main Street was solid people from the gate to the hub, garlands with bells and bows strung overhead, and Sleeping Beauty Castle at the end of it still in its holiday snow — white banks on the turrets, icicles hanging off the stonework, garlands over the arch. Our daughter wore her Aurora dress for the occasion and grinned in front of the castle like the two of them matched, which they did.

From there we went through Fantasyland — past the teacups, most of them spinning, one out of commission under a tarp — and on to It's a Small World, which gets the full treatment for the season: the whole facade in white and gold, wreaths in the windows, a Santa hat on the big clock face. The line wrapped past the topiaries. Grandpa carried the baby through most of it, and she rode against his shoulder with her burp cloth, taking in whatever a baby takes in.

The toy soldiers came out of the clock while we were still standing in line.