Christmas -- again -- Wanamaker's

The weather here is cool and I'm getting antsy to get out my snowmen and start the annual decorating that goes with Thanksgiving and Christmas. I know I have to wait a few more weeks, but I am getting antsy.

There is a wonderful website out there and I'll add it at the end of this episode.

In 1955 my father took me to Wanamaker's at 13th & Market in Philadelphia. Dad didn't take me into Philly very often, but when he did it was, well, let me tell you...

First, we'd get on a bus -- no perfume this time. I remember one time when I went into Philly with dad, someone was smoking on the bus (which as the sign on the bus stated it was illegal and punishable by a fine). Well, this person would just not put out that cigarette. So dad, a non-smoker, went up to him, and took the cigarette from him and said, "Let me show you how to do that." And put the cig in his mouth, inhaled, then quickly exhaled all that smoke into that smoker's face. The guy got the picture. He put out the cigarette.

But that was on another trip, not the first one to Wanamaker's Christmas show in '55.

Whenever dad took me to Philadelphia he did three things. First, we went to 8th and Chestnut to go to Pinebrook Book Store where he would stock up on Bibles, or books, or whatever he thought he needed for the ministryand have them shipped to the house. Then we would hustle back up to Market Street, walk west on Market toward 13th. Always, and I mean always, I knew what was coming, and I was helpless to stop it. This was AFTER the bribe of a big, luscious Philadelphia pretzel (also describe on the website at the bottom) with mustard.

He would grab hold of my hand and since he always carried an umbrella with him, he would stop dead in this tracks, pretend he was a blind man, and start singing, Abide with me (always Abide with me), holding a cup in his hand. Where he got the cup from, I don't know, but he had one. And, right there on Market Street with all those people walking byhe would do his thing. I was always so embarrassed. You'd think I would have learned not to go into Philly with dad, but the good outweighed the bad, so I went with him.

Anyway, we'd end up at Wanamaker's where there is a marvelous pipe organ, and we'd get there in time for the 1:00 p.m. concert. We'd stand in the atrium and listen to those pipes, then dad would go up the stairs to the 5th floor, where the console of the organ was housed, and visit with the organist. That remembrance is so vivid to me. Dad loved the organ.

Well, in 1955, Wanamaker's started a new tradition, which it continues to this day, even though now, Wanamaker's is Lord and Taylor. They made a Christmas show with water fountains and lights and music. And every hour, on the hour, they'd run this show, beginning the day after Thanksgiving, until the day before Christmas. It was wonderful. I went every year until I married and moved away from Runnemede.

I was fortunate to be able to take my own children to see the show at least once after that.

Words really can't describe the anticipation and the excitement and then the wonder of that show, and no matter how many times I saw it, and no matter that I had the program memorized by the time I was 16, it was still awesome, totally awesome.

See: http://www.angelfire.com/zine/digest/wanamakers.html Be sure to visit all the links. You'll enjoy it.