We spent three weeks in Philly over the winter holidays. I already wrote about our bi-coastal Hanukkah which was definitely a highlight of our trip, but the fun really began the night we arrived and the boys got to enjoy a few minutes playing in the snow. We wouldn’t normally indulge in a nighttime snow party, but I knew the weather would warm up and bring rain over night, and I was concerned this would be their only opportunity to play in the snow this year. Snow has been increasingly rare in Philly over the past several years.

Fortunately, the snow returned couple times during our trip, even though one storm fizzled out a bit and turned to ice. The boys enjoyed cleaning ice off the car and shoveling the driveway. I’m glad someone did!

Then on New Year’s Day we woke up to more snow! It wasn’t much in any of these little storms, but it was enough for them to have fun running around in and throwing snowballs, and that was plenty for them.

We made it downtown twice this trip, the first was on the last day of Hanukkah when we went to City Hall to visit the Christmas Village open air market. Notably, they have a stall that sells vegan cannoli, which means once a year MJ can enjoy them. Coming down the weekend before Christmas meant that it was pretty packed though, and the crowds made it a bit difficult to really enjoy. The boys would have liked to go on the carousel but none of us would have enjoyed the lines to get tickets AND to ride it. We ended up going over to a nearby pizzeria for lunch instead of fighting crowds at the on-site eatery, and then made our way over to The Wanamaker Building to stand in line for the Christmas light show.

Wanamaker’s has an interesting history. Founded in 1861, Wanamaker’s was one of the first department stores in the United States, and made several innovations in the realm of retail. After changing hands, the brand finally saw an end in 1995 when it was turned into a Hecht’s, and in 2006 it was turned into a Macy’s. Macy’s closed in the spring of 2025, leaving the building vacant. In spite of changing hands, Macy’s kept up a Wanamaker tradition of a free Christmas light show, and it was believed that as the era of department stores came to a close, so would that tradition. The building is a historic landmark, so there are limitations as to what can be done with it, but there was never a guarantee that new owners would allow open public access like the department stores had. Fortunately, they decided to keep up the tradition of the light show for at least one more year in 2025, and we finally got to enjoy the vintage light show that MJ had enjoyed when he was a kid. The future of this light show is uncertain as the building closes for a couple years for renovations by the new owners, so I was glad that we got to see it.

We also learned that there was a Dickens Village upstairs that I hear included vintage animatronic figures as you walk through the story of A Christmas Carol, but it required free, timed tickets that were sold out for the day. They also had an indoor market, which due to capacity tracking in the building was a much more pleasant experience than the outdoor market and we picked up a few things. From there, we hopped on the train and headed home.

We waited until after Christmas to do some of our bigger shopping, like our stops at Ikea and the King of Prussia Mall, but the mall was still a bit of a mad house. In spite of the demise of shopping malls in the United States, King of Prussia is thriving, and growing. For this visit, we had a little shopping to do, and while we were there we had lunch at Netflix House Philadelphia. Netflix House is the latest in “experiences” popping up in malls, amusingly in places like the aforementioned vacant department stores. Netflix House has a diner-like restaurant and bar where the dishes are all themed based on shows and movies from Netflix, and then you go downstairs to huge displays that reflect their various hit shows and movies, and a free theater (with timed ticket) featuring some of their movies. Of course there’s a very busy gift shop, and then paid activities like a VR experience , mini-golf, and a Wednesday-themed carnival and arcade. The mini-golf was sold out for more than a week, and even with those tickets there was a line to get in.

I love this trend. Like most people, we do a lot of shopping online now, and the loss of traditional department stores has not been much of a loss to us. The joke with Macy’s downtown going out of business last year was: “Such a beautiful location, but I haven’t been to there in years.” “No one has, that’s why it closed.” But sold out experiences at Netflix House? That’s what we want now. So much so that it’s the place I suggested meeting up with my friend Stephen who happened to be in town for the holidays too! It was still winter break for students, but it was a weekday and the place was still packed, just like when our whole family went over the weekend. I think during our next trip we’ll check out Bluey House in Plymouth Meeting.

My second visit downtown was on our final week there. I took a couple early morning work meetings and then packed up my work laptop to hop on a train with our au pair and the boys. SEPTA Regional Rail is nice for working on and I’d queued up a bunch of work that would be easy to do in-transit, which worked out nicely. Once we arrived at Suburban Station, it was a quick walk over to The Franklin Institute, where we all got tickets and I got the three of them settled into their museum adventures. I then walked over to Parkway Central Library next door. You see, I learned from a podcast a couple months ago that Grip the raven resides there, in their Rare Books Department. Grip was once the pet of Charles Dickens’ and was made immortal by his novel Barnaby Rudge. Edgar Allan Poe was a reviewer of the novel, and it’s said that the presence of Grip in the book, as well as a subsequent meeting with Dickens and learning that Grip was a real bird, was an inspiration for his most famous poem, The Raven. Quite the bird! I had to meet her.

I also had the pleasure of arriving in time for the daily 11AM tour of the Rare Books Department itself. Among various other treasures, I saw a real page from a Gutenberg Bible and a writing desk that once was owned by Charles Dickens. Just across from the Rare Books Department they also had an exhibit about death called Or Not to Be which is what actually drew me to come down and visit Grip on a work day, rather than waiting until our next trip. It was a nice little exploration.

I then spent a couple hours working there in the library before meeting up with them at The Franklin to do a late lunch and check out a science show. It was then back to work for me, while the kids spent a bit more time at the museum before taking a 4PM train back home.

And of course, we spent a bunch of time with family. The boys got to visit with grandpa a bunch of times, including a couple of nice meals together. The boys got to enjoy some visits with their cousin Sammy and Aunt Irina. Our trip also included a jaunt over to New Jersey for lunch with a cousin, and then some time visiting with her husband at their house where we ate diner cupcakes (the BEST), MJ diagnosed a problem with her TV, and the boys enjoyed playing with their power lift recliner. MJ and I even were able to go out for a couple of nice meals together on our own, including a very nice dinner downtown at Buddakan. I also spent one evening on my own to finally see Wicked: For Good in the theater, which was quite a treat.

Back at home got to do lots of Lego, play with the Hanukkah train, and we made a little progress on some house projects. I also ended up with an infection that made me a lot more tired than I expected halfway through our trip. I was recovering from a sinus infection when we arrived, and ended up with a secondary, antibiotic-resistant infection elsewhere in my body just a few days after I concluded the round of antibiotics I had been on from the sinus infection. I actually thought I was just tired from all our adventures, birthdays, and holiday stuff, so I blamed my brain when I melted into the couch while MJ worked on things with the boys over the weekend. A visit to Urgent Care on Monday and a pile of tests proved that the pain I had developed that day was indeed an infection. Time for a second round of antibiotics! Somewhat amusingly, I had just begun reading Everything is Tuberculosis, and the irony of reading a book that spends a lot of time talking about antibiotic resistance while fighting off an antibiotic-resistent infection myself was not lost on me. And both also made me acutely aware of how fragile we are in this arms race with bacteria and infections. Thankfully, my infection was uncomplicated and this round of antibiotics knocked it out in a few days and I was feeling a lot better by the time we traveled home on January 8th.