They came to the Wanamaker Building on Christmas Eve because it’s what they have done all the years they have been alive. They came bundled against the chill because they never had come before — and did not want to miss it now. They came out of love for the ghosts of Christmas past — and to share in the merriment of a cherished tradition with children who had yet to see the lights dance or hear the great organ play. They came because it is all going away, and no one knows for sure when it will be back.
On Wednesday, thousands crowded into the gilded Grand Court of the Wanamaker Building for a last chance to meet at the eagle and behold the Wanamaker Light Show this holiday season. And to witness the end of what has been a truly blessed Christmas for the endangered Philadelphia holiday tradition.
Both the Light Show and Dickens Village were saved by fundraising efforts announced after the sale of Macy’s earlier this year. In November, organizers said that with 700 individual donors and gifts from philanthropic foundations, they had raised enough of their $350,000 goal to bring back both attractions for at least one more holiday season — and to begin planning for their future care. While a permanent home for the Light Show, which began in 1956, remained an unsettled question, organizers had raised just enough to produce the holiday attractions in the shuttered department store this year.
With the attraction’s future in doubt, the crowds kept flocking to the Wanamaker Light Show. Over 100,000 visitors have come through since both holiday attractions opened on Black Friday — a number that far exceeded planners’ expectations, said Kathryn Ott Lovell, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Visitor Center, who also led the fundraising effort. While the show remained free, guests donated more than $40,000 during its seasonal run.
“It’s been totally overwhelming,” said Lovell, working the door before Wednesday’s afternoon final shows. “But also joyful and exciting and heartwarming. We didn’t anticipate these crowds.”
Due to the planned construction within the Wanamaker Building, the Light Show and Dickens Village will take a pause in 2026 and 2027, Lovell said. But advocates for the show remain in conversation with new building owner TF Cornerstone about continuing the holiday traditions at the Wanamaker in years to come.
“Everybody wants this show saved,” Lovell said.
Indeed, almost since the first show in November, lines had stretched out the door onto Market Street, often wrapping all the way down Chestnut Street, with organizers merrily hiring more staff and security and welcoming scores of volunteers.
“There was a sense of ‘we have to get here because it might not be here again,’” Lovell said, adding that she is more optimistic than ever that the show will have a future.
That’s exactly why Dori Pico, 68, of Center City, was first in line at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, a full hour and a half before shows began running every 30 minutes.
“It’s the last time we might be seeing this,” said Pico, who had attended the shows after moving to Philadelphia in recent years, and wished that she had gotten to experience one with her father, Juan Vincente Lugo, before he passed away.
Down a few spaces, Paulette Steffa, 72, originally of Cheltenham, clutched a photo of her and siblings at Santa’s knee during the first Light Show in 1956. Attending Wednesday’s show with her brother Peter, she said she had been to the Light Show every year since, and had even attended the first performance of this year’s season.
“We were here the day it opened,” Steffa said. “We needed to be here on the last day.”
Soon, the lights in the Grand Court dimmed, and an expectant hush fell over families huddled around the 2,500-pound bronze eagle sculpture.
Darlene Harley of Overbrook had ridden the train to Center City so her great-great-granddaughter, Aryah, 7, could see the show before it goes away for a few years, or maybe longer. Her parents and grandparents had always brought her as a child, Harley said.
“And now I wanted her to see,” she said as the show began and 100,000 individual bulbs twinkled to life in the grand space.
Soon, everyone was looking up, as Frosty and Rudolph and the Sugar Plum Fairies danced in light. Families waiting in line for Dickens Village peered over the ledge of an upper floor for a closer look. Peter Richard Conte, who has played the pipes of the world’s biggest organ since 1989, had only just played the familiar opening chords of “O Tannenbaum” when Steffa began to cry.
Watching in the dark, she thought of all those childhood shows when her parents, Andi and Peter, made sure they were at the front of the line. She remembered all those holiday wishes on Santa’s knee and scrumptious holiday breakfasts in the old Crystal Tea Room. All those years, all those memories at the Wanamaker Light Show.
“It’s part of Philadelphia,” she said.
