It’s the end of December. Soon it will be New Year’s Eve and then 2025 will be here.

I marvel that so much of my life has already happened and the inner child in me born in 1964 marvels at all the time that has gone by and all the distinct Christmas memories.

I remember the Christmas processions we did at St. Peter’s with our white robes and candles. The Christmas book fair at St. Peter’s and getting books sign by Marguerite de Angeli. I remember Santa Lucia at Old Swede’s. I remember the year Kitty the cat got into her catnip Christmas stocking and was as stoned as a loon dangling mostly upside down from the top of the Christmas tree. And then she skidded up and down the front hall for a while.

I also am even at 60 reminded of the year my mother told me to stop fiddling with my chocolate milk at Wanamaker’s Crystal Tea Room at Christmas and drop it… and I did…right into my aunt’s lap…as in her sister-in-law not my great aunts. Winter white suit too I am told.

We used to go see all of the Christmas displays at all of the department stores in Philadelphia and then we had lunch at the Crystal Tea Room. I always had scrambled eggs, toast, and chocolate milk. Mostly we did this with my great aunts.

At Strawbridge’s it was the Dickens Christmas Village and the figures were animatronic. At Gimbels the figures also moved, but in the windows. Lit Brothers had the enchanted village and John Wanamaker’s had the light show and the pipe organ and the waterfall. After the light show was when we would go all the way up in the elevators to the huge Crystal Tea Room. It was filled with the noise of other families and tons of kids. I also remember when we were leaving there was almost like a check out line in the grocery store. And all the women who were in the tea room wore crisp uniforms.

It’s sad to me now because Philadelphia during Christmas was once really something. Those Christmas displays drew people into the city almost like a July 4th concert.

I’m told that part or all of the Lit Brothers display is at a slightly creepy cavernous warehouse space in Oaks next to a FedEx hub called the American Treasure Tour Museum. The place is owned by someone referred to as “the Collector” who is supposed to be all mysterious, yet Reddit says it’s the developer behind Audubon Land Development (think Happy Days Farm) which owns that property in Oaks where this is and Arnold’s Family Fun Center etc. is? Also supposedly owns the Classic Auto Mall in Morgantown?

The Wanamaker pipe organ has its own nonprofit now and is being preserved. But the Wanamaker building which is a historic landmark went into foreclosure and it was announced in December that it had been acquired by a developer and private equity firm out of New York and the building will be converted to residential apartments, and my guess is that they will be rental apartments vs. some kind of condo development. Now that is not the worst adaptive reuse I’ve ever heard of, but what will happen to the organ in the future and during construction? And according to the Inquirer, that is where the Strawbridge’s Dickens Village moved so what happens to that now?

Also, the Christmas season always meant The Philadelphia Charity Ball. When we went, it was held at the Bellevue Strafford and it was held on December 23rd. Being in the Cotillion was like being part of a different world. I don’t think it’s the same today and it seemed quite small in event this past year and moved to Merion Cricket Club which kind of takes the Philadelphia out of it, so it could be dying?

Other memories like caroling parties at my cousin Suzy’s in Newtown, Bucks County where we all had a lot of fun….except we were so out of tune I am surprised no one paid us to go away. And when we were there for any kind of a holiday meal or gathering, the plates that were used were Suzy’s late mother’s and they were a pattern I have never seen since with pine boughs and pine cones. They disappeared in her divorce. I still wonder if her first husband has them somewhere. I think it was a Rosenthal pattern.

Then there are all the memories of Christmas parties at my parents’ friends between a Harleysville, Schwenksville, Malvern, and eventually Wayne. Glittering German Christmas celebrations that were just so beautiful in all of their homes over the years.

Also the little girl memories of going with my father in a red VW bug through the snowy streets of Philadelphia to get a Christmas tree sold off the freight cars at the rail yards.

Or other little girl memories of going to 9th street for Christmas goodies from DiBruno’s when there was only one and whatever meat we were preparing from Cappuccio’s. I even have a random Christmas or Christmas Eve memory of my great aunts house on Ritner Street in South Philadelphia and it was packed to the gills and so hot.

Lots of other memories mashed together through the years including my father’s slightly exasperating method and routine for putting up the Christmas tree. And oh yes, silver and gold ornaments only. We eventually snuck in some other stuff over time but they were few and far between and only little white lights. The trees were gorgeous, don’t misunderstand me, but I think this is why my trees have so much color. Of course the other thing about the growing up Christmas trees is they often didn’t come down until almost February and one year almost Valentine’s Day.

And then there was New Year’s Eve party when we had first moved to suburbia and were living in Gladwyne. I think it was New Year’s Eve 1975 into 1976. I remember grown ups dancing in the snow and singing LOUDLY as the clock ticked down to midnight. That was the night when my late godmother’s husband tried to scrape all of the dinner scraps down the sink drain….and there was no garbage disposal….

And then there was the year our friends from Bethesda, MD came up for New Year’s Eve and Abigail the Springer Spaniel ate part of the chocolate sponge cake cooling on the stovetop waiting to be rolled with cream for dessert… the surviving cake became a trifle.

Then there was when a friend of mine named Barb showed us all the art form of the gift basket. We had never thought of blending old and new in a basket full of Christmas treats for people. It was something she did and to this day it’s a favorite kind of Christmas gift to assemble. Back then it was because it gave us more bang for our buck with Christmas presents and a more younger person‘s budget. I still like it because it’s fun to do.

Then came the Christmas Eve party that always felt compulsory. It was a Main Line affair. The parties hosted when it was wife #1 meant the daughters had matching outfits to wife #1’s hostess gowns and they were posed on the stairs when the front door was answered. (Well it was the late 1970s.) Wife #1 set the tone and the woman had enough of a chill she was frosty.

It was no real surprise when there was a divorce and then there was wife #2. (Of course later on, wide #1 would hunt husband #2 who was the father of someone else I knew like big game, and wow all those bridesmaids then, really? But I digress.

When it was wife # 2 the parties became more warm and welcoming. Except when I was in my 20s there was the married guy who had a store somewhere who came every Christmas Eve for a few years without his wife and every Christmas Eve tried to pick up single young women, usually the daughters of the the families attending. One year it was my turn. He asked if I wanted to go to a party with him and leave the current party and I asked him kind of loudly if his wife would be joining us and something else. That took care of that. That was super uncomfortable. Worst of all? Married dude tried to pick me up in front of my father.

Now this was the party where the cool kids hung out in the library, and the younger kids took over the basement. And the adults were everywhere in between.

As time seemed to speed up, I would host Christmas or Christmas Eve and then my sister would host Christmas or Christmas Eve. And then there were years were Christmas seemed to not exist like the Christmas in 2010 that my brother-in-law died.

This has been a really nice but still kind of hard holiday season this year for me personally. It’s the first one without my friend Anna, and when you’ve had 48 years of Christmas and holiday seasons in one form or the other with one friend, you miss them when they’re gone, but I’m thinking now she’s with our friend David, who passed away a couple of years ago. I still keep waiting for the phone to ring or to get a text message from her. It’s just sort of bittersweet in some moments and others just sad. And then I have the random memories of shopping for Christmas presents in Bryn Mawr with her when we were younger than driving age. There was this awesome bookstore next to Parvin’s Pharmacy and then there was KatyDid and looking at the scarab bracelets at Mr. Fish’s.

And then this is the Christmas I found out that a friend of mine from college that I didn’t even know was sick was also gone. She was someone that I was only in touch with infrequently at this point, but it’s still another loss. And she came from a rather large and close-knit family, and I feel for them and her own family. She was so nice and bright and hard working and lived for her own family.

This is also the Christmas that one of my sorority sisters is on hospice. She told everyone before Thanksgiving. She’s just a wonderful person and nice. And another person I know is on hospice. It must be one of those years.

So I have all of these great Christmas memories and then there are the holiday season melancholies I suppose you might call them. Nothing terminal or bad, but bittersweet with twinges of sad. There are people we have all had in our lives that we just maybe thought would go on forever. And a lot of them were the people we knew who also loved the holidays. We carry their memory and our memories of them in our hearts and minds, and it’s ok to get a little schmoopy and sentimental.

Happy and safe New Year to all.