Every year, when Disneyland celebrates the holidays, the Haunted Mansion goes through a transformation. Starting prior to Halloween, and running all the way through Christmas, the Haunted Mansion becomes the Haunted Mansion Holiday and takes on a Nightmare Before Christmas theme. The centerpiece of the makeover is always a massive gingerbread house, which is newly designed each year. This year's house is six-feet tall, but the massive Oogie Boogie standing next to it, also made of gingerbread, measures in at an incredible seven feet. Check it out.
The house is a real gingerbread construction made to look like the Haunted Mansion itself. but each year a new design is created, making the house a key thing to check out every Halloween, even if you're a frequent traveler to the Happiest Place on Earth. While Oogie Boogie always makes an appearance during the Haunted Mansion Holiday, he's usually seen near the conclusion of the ride. According to the Disney Parks Blog, this is the first time the villain has been part of the gingerbread house construction in 13 years. The house itself has been part of the ride since 2000.
This version of the mansion is crawling with bugs. Luckily, Oogie Boogie knows exactly what to do about that, eat them. He's pried the roof open and is armed with a fork so that he can indulge his own hunger. Meanwhile, the guests ride by and are instead made hungry by the smell of gingerbread. Gingerbread bugs cover the house and the ballroom table, and possibly elsewhere as well. The blog implies that some bugs may have escaped, so perhaps the gingerbread house has actually expanded to other parts of the ride, via bugs placed throughout the attraction.
Halloween has become one of the most popular times to visit Disneyland and this year the park expanded the experience so there's more fun to go around. Halloween themed park activity started this past Friday, a month and a half before the holiday itself. Also, for the first time, Disney's California Adventure is also being redecorated, including a reskin of Cars Land celebrating Haul-o-Ween, and a special version of the new Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission - Breakout ride called "Monsters After Dark."
The house is an impressive one, though, for my money, it's hard to beat the gingerbread iron maiden from a few years ago. It was both cleverly designed, and a bit darker and more twisted than you'd expect from Disney.
The Oogie Boogie gingerbread house is on display now and will remain through early January, so you've got plenty of time to go check it out in person.
