SusieJ's Advent Calendar: December 5, 2007

The recipe: Zitronenherzen

In 2003, an exchange student from Sachsen-Anhalt joined us for ten months. One of the recipes he brought were these lemony hearts.

The surprise: Child's Play

Child's Play is a charity started by two geeks to provide games to children's hospitals. It was started to show that gamers are not the anti-social slackers so often portrayed in the media.

Animatronics

By the 70s, animatronic technology was inexpensive enough to expand from Disneyworld to department stores, and, most importantly for me, garden centers like Gaudios in Northeast Philadelphia.

The trip to Gaudio's with Granma was our special event every Christmas. We would wander for what felt like hours (but was probably only 20 minutes), as I stared at every Santa, reindeer and elf. After returning to the house, I would probably watch her bake Christmas cookies, play with Granpa's pinochle decks (have you ever tried to play solitaire with a pinochle deck?) and read my mother's old books.

One year she took me into Center City, to Strawbridge and Clothier's flagship store at Eighth and Market streets, to see the animated Dickens Village. Or maybe it was to the Enchanted Colonial Village display at the Lit Brothers store across Eighth Street? Memories of the Dickens Village are fuzzy, but a moment of the elevated subway ride when we were above Philadelphia is clear. Both were probably equally exciting.

(Both displays can be seen again after years of neglect in storage. The Macy's store at Thirteenth and Market showcases the Dickens Village, and still displays the Wanamaker light show many times a day. Part of the Enchanted Colonial Village display is at the Please Touch Museum. When PTM opens their second facility in Fairmount Park's Memorial Hall, it will move there.)