We were down this past year from 10/21-11/1 and thought the crowds were very reasonable and the weather was great. We were able to just sit by the pool on a few down days we had. It was pretty easy to get FPs and the stand-by lines were usually nothing more than 25 minutes or so at peak times of the day. MNSSHP is worth checking out once if you haven't done so before. The F&W fest at EPCOT is a ton of fun and worth spending at least a full day exploring.
The Christmas lights may start to go up after the last MNSSHP (the last party is usually 11/1) but don't expect to see much, if any of them. Usually, from what I have read, the Christmas decorations aren't fully up until the day of either the first MVMCP or the day the Christmas Parade is first shot, usually about a week or so after the last MNSSHP. This also goes for the Osborne lights at DHS.