Extinct Attractions: Minnie's Christmas Party

Welcome to Extinct Attractions. It’s time to jump into the Christmas spirit by looking at a Disneyland Christmas show from the early 2000s.

It’s been Christmas at Disneyland since November 14th, but for those of us waiting until Thanksgiving folks, we have finally reached the most wonderful time of the year. Christmas has been a part of Disneyland since its opening in 1955 with consistent parades and fireworks shows over the years to celebrate the holiday season. 

Via Wikipedia 

In 1999, Disney released Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas and it immediately became a crowd-pleaser, especially amongst people around my age. With that in mind, Disney decided to incorporate more Mickey into the parks, with one of the first instances coming at the Fantasyland Theater, right outside of Mickey’s Toontown. To replace Animazement, Disney went with the Christmas spirit and introduced Minnie’s Christmas Party on November 2, 2001.

The show began with a couple of singers strolling across the stage with presents saying that they are heading to Minnie’s Christmas party. After they walked across the stage, they knocked on Minnie’s door and she popped on stage to let them in so they could all sing “White Christmas” together. 

But the singers weren’t the only guests invited, with Chip and Dale showing up next, collectively dressed as Santa. That may be some weird phrasing, but what I meant was that one was wearing the hat and coat of Santa, while the other was in the beard and pants. It was such a silly look, but it led to some nice comedy and also a question from Minnie about why they were dressed as Santa because that was supposed to be Mickey’s job. They all came together to sing “We Need a Little Christmas,” which was just so much fun to see members of the Fab Five sing Christmas carols. 

Via YouTube 

Goofy was the next guest to appear, also conveniently dressed as Santa, and he brought with him the fitting song of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Pluto also got into the Santa action, bringing Frosty the Snowman with him for a rendition of the song that ended with Frosty getting kicked out of the party, so that he wouldn’t melt.

This is as good a time as any to mention how incredible the dancing in the show was. Most of the performers were dressed as characters in full Santa suits and doing incredible choreographed numbers with a bunch of different moves. Just seeing the Top 5 getting so hip with it was super fun and a blast to watch in general.

After all of the activity, it was time to slow things down a bit with Minnie reading part of “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” to everyone. Towards the end of the story, there was a crash and boom, Santa Mickey showed up out of the kitchen to give everyone a good startle.

Via YouTube 

Mickey was such a hit upon his arrival, that he hopped onto a sleigh, while dancing to some music. It was a fun, choreographed dance that was a visual treat and very funny to see Mickey getting pulled around by all of the other characters. 

To close things out, the show ended with “Deck the Halls” sung by all of the characters, which worked perfectly as a closing number. The show was a wonderful fit for the park and served its role as a people eater to perfection. It was a great blend of Christmas spirit and classic Disney theme park shows to the level that it came back for another Christmas season in 2002. But after that, it was the final Christmas show in the theater before being replaced by Mickey’s Detective School.

In a really cool move, Minnie’s Christmas Party got life for one more night, years later on December 6, 2009. As part of a special D23 members only event, they brought the show back to life in Stage 17 (the former home of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire - Play It!) in Disney California Adventure. It’s very rare that a show gets to make a comeback like that, so respect for including that in the programming. I wish we had some more Christmas shows in the parks, but maybe one day, we’ll finally get another one.

Via ImgFlip 

As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.

Thanks for reading and have a magical day!