Disney Halloween: Eerie Anaheim Nights

Mickey's Halloween Party and special decorations mark the bewitching season.

THE HOLIDAYS ALL YEAR: It's hard to find Christmas in March or Halloween in June, but there is a place in Anaheim where it kind of feels like the holidays all year long. Maybe it is because Disneyland is a place devoted to deep nostalgia, and nostalgia and emotion and memory are very much connected to our own memories of holidays as kids. Maybe it is because you can always buy something a little Christmasy in the shops -- say, an ornament -- or that the Haunted Mansion is a year-round destination, not just an October thing. (Oh goodness; we just had to pause and catch our breath over that one! The very idea of only being able to see the Haunted Mansion during one month of the year is almost scarier than anything in the Mansion itself.) So when a holiday really comes long, it can feel like holiday frosting spread on a holiday cake. It's ultra-holiday-ish, is what we're saying, which is what fright-seeking fans -- fright of the fun sort, of course -- will find at the resort during the 2013 Halloween Time, which is on now through Oct. 31.

ON THE DASTARDLY DOCKET: The oh-so-sweet Mickey's Halloween Party is a year-in, year-out favorite, because of several reasons, yes, but these are near the top: trick-or-treating inside Disneyland. What? Right? Pure amazingness. That's a different ticket, note, but you do get into the park three hours ahead of the party. Also on the Halloween-y sked? Ghost Galaxy is back at Space Mountain -- creepy cosmos, oh no! -- and the Haunted Mansion is now in its "Nightmare Before Christmas" finery. Not too far off is a Dia de los Muertos display in Frontierland. Oh, the Disney villains are out, too, and so are hundreds of carved pumpkins around Main Street.

Here's a peek at this year's Haunted Mansion transformation. Seriously, we want to decorate it one year. You, too? Can you volunteer for that?

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