Thanks for the reports, you two, and for the photos, Dave. Really nice one of the griffin especially, and I had never before noticed the grinning "face" carved on the post behind it. Just when you think you've seen everything that those guys put into the place, you discover something new. (GRD probably has enough "did you know?" material to run his blog until the Mansion's 100th anniversary.)

IIRC, in the past it has sometimes taken a few days for the HM to get fine-tuned after HMH. I seem to recall remarks in previous years about funky lighting levels, for example. I would suspect that it's a very tight schedule to do the switcharoo and they can't always get everything absolutely perfect by reopening in January.