The day always started with us sleeping in a little later than usual. After all, it was a day off, so you had to put it to good use and get yourself a little extra sleep. It was just a little, maybe an hour or two more, but then our feet hit the floor and we started to get ready.
We always took the Route 2 bus north on 16th street into town. My mom and her friends didn't trust the subway, they believed too many bad things happened down there. When we were old enough to ride it ourselves, we would on boring days take a ride northbound into either Walnut-Locust or City Hall stations with friends; go up the stairs, and cross over to go southbound again, riding in front so we could watch as we rode down the tracks.
Anyhow, when we went with the adults, we stayed on the surface. The first stop once hitting Market Street was a short walk to John Wanamaker's department store to see the Christmas light show, which was a must-see and still should be for families today, even if it's now Macy's and the booming voice of John Facenda has been long-gone. Afterward, we'd head up to the 8th floor via elevator (which still had operators) to the toy department where there were two things a kid had to do: ride the monorail around the department and go shopping for your parents at the Little Santa shop that the store set up for kids to shop for family members. The doorway into the shop was really low, giving kids the impression that only they could enter; no adults allowed. We were so into it that we didn't even think about how the adult cashiers and sales helpers got into the room. I think it's safe to say they weren't shrunken momentarily to allow them entrance, but we didn't care. There was also the mandatory stop to get your picture taken with Santa until reality set in and he became just another tall tale. We finished our trip to Wanamaker's with a stop for lunch in the fancy dining room they had there, The Crystal Tea Room. It was a lot fancier than places kids go most times of the year like Gino's or the lunch counter at your favorite five-and-dime.
After lunch, we'd trek east on Market to Lit Brothers department store at 8th Street. This was before the pit of an urban mall they called The Gallery was built down the street. Lit's had an attraction called The Enchanted Village, an animated Christmas town that was enjoyed by kids and adults alike. We'd sometimes line up through the length of the store to wait to get to see it and at other times, breeze through. The trip through the village took only maybe fifteen minutes, but we got to clown around with each other while waiting and the time wasn't wasted, the adults loved that more than the kids. The Enchanted Village survived until Lit's closed in 1975, it was revived until recently at the Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park. It may still be there. City tourism sites hint at it, but the museum's website makes no mention of it.
There were two other department stores on Market St. East in those days - Strawbridge & Clothier and Gimbels - but to our knowledge, neither had anything like the other stores did. Either that, or the moms had their preferences. The only thing we can remember is that on Thanksgiving Day, they were the sponsors of the parade, and Santa Claus would ascend the ladder of a Philadelphia Fire Department ladder truck and enter the window of one of the store's upper floors to usher in the Christmas season. After that, I don't know of anything other than a department store Santa. It's a shame really because they missed out on drawing in the kids with their parents and what could have been some tradition for some families.
The common thread in all this were the big department stores. Now, only Macy's survives Wanamaker's once had nine floors in Center City, whittled down to three or four with office space on the higher ones. Retail is a different animal than it was back in the day, and that's sad because generations of kids and entire families will miss out on what attractions we remember from just forty years ago. It wasn't just competition either. Years ago, men like John Wanamaker were known as outstanding citizens as well as businessmen; with Wanamaker being known to be extremely generous to others and to his church.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanamaker%27s for detailed info.
Sure, we did the same thing every year, but it was quality time together, Moms and Dads, when you have the opportunity to build on a Christmas tradition, go ahead and do it. Four decades from now, your kids will remember that you cared about them and have great memories of those days.
