by Ray Keating
Parks Visit
DisneyBizJournal.com
December 22, 2023
Amidst all of the hustle and bustle in Walt Disney World, Disney’s Candlelight Processional ranks as my favorite Christmas holiday event or production in and around the parks.
The Candlelight Processional began in Disneyland in 1958, with a Florida rendition added at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in 1971. The Disney World version was moved to the America Gardens Theatre in EPCOT in 1994.
The processional features a celebrity narrator reading the Christmas story of the birth of Christ, with a massed choir singing an assortment of Christmas hymns.
I was able to attend the Candlelight Processional twice this year in EPCOT. One featured Brendan Fraser as the guest narrator, and the other was Sterling K. Brown. Both were excellent, and the choir voices and orchestra were sublime. The following video offers a few highlights from these two visits.
So, amidst all of the holiday happenings in and around Disney World, why is the Candlelight Processional my favorite? Well, the late Disney historian Jim Korkis wrote the following in his book The Vault of Walt Volume 7: Christmas Edition: Yuletide Tales of Walt Disney: “It was Walt Disney himself who insisted that even though the Candlelight Processional was to celebrate Christmas that there would be no Santa Claus and no Disney characters so that the focus could be on the real reason for the season.”
That’s it: Walt and the Candlelight Processional stay focused on the ultimate reason for the season: the birth of Jesus Christ.
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Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com; and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries, the Alliance of Saint Michael novels, and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?
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