And For Christmas Morning, A Happy Tradition

Merry Christmas, my dear, dear peeps!

For my Christmas entry, I thought that I would share a few of pictures (most taken with my less-than-stellar phone) with you of the trip to center city that my mother, brother and I managed to squeeze into our hectic schedules to see the Wanamaker's Show of Lights. This trip has been one of my favorite Christmas traditions for as long as I can remember. The show was introduced in 1956, and has gone through a number of changes--many of which I remember firsthand because that's how old I am--but no matter if the department store is called Wanamakers or Strawbridges or Macy's, no matter if the lights are incandescent or LED, no matter if the dancing water fountains or if the show is narrarated by John Facenda or Julie Andrews, as soon as the department store lights dim and the lighted bears blow their horns, it feels like magic.


Between each show the Christmas tree changes colors while "snow" falls down the light screen.

Blue and purple...

Then red and green...

The lights in the department store dim, the bears sound their trumps, and then the Coo-Coo clocks chime!

♫ ♪ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ♪ ♫

And the finale!

We watched the show from the third floor where there used to be a restaurant called Terrace on the Court where we would have lunch when I was a chiddler and catch one of the shows. (The show runs ever hour and we would usually get to see it several times during our visit.) My favorite place to watch though was sitting with other kids on the red carpet in the middle of the Grand Court under the protective eye of The Wanamaker Eagle.

As I stood before the beautiful dancing lights that held so many happy memories and looked down to see children sitting where I had sat so many years ago and creating memories of their own, it occured to me that this must be what angels feel like.

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