We used to go regularly at that time as well but stopped because the weather was consistently quite poor. The last time we were there so late was about 6 years ago when we had 10 days in December when we didn't venture outside until mid morning because it was so chilly.
We went this year purely because we had to cancel a planned trip in September. It was very warm but, to be honest, I think we were quite lucky and would still be cautious about doing it regularly again.
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