Since moving down to New Jersey, one of my absolute favorite parts of Christmas is taking the very short trip over the bridge into Philadelphia, PA to see all of the festivities they have. In my humble opinion, Philadelphia is a very underrated city. It's very cool and holds a ton of history. There are a ton of really neat old buildings, lots of great stores and restaurants that represent every culture you can think of.
When it comes to Christmas time, there are tons of different things to check out. This year their annual Christmas Village was moved to City Hall and it was a really neat setting. It went around the entire perimeter of the building, as well as through the courtyard in the middle. There is an ice skating rink that gets set up outside of City Hall as well so you can do some shopping, eating and skating all in one place!
One of the really cool things they did this year was a "maze" put together in front of City Hall. They call it a maze, but it definitely isn't. While there are little trails that wind together, the greenery is very short so you can see where you're going. You certainly aren't going to get lost, but one of the things that I love is that it shows off some of the different horticultural parks and organizations.
Philadelphia has a huge Flower Show every year and is home to a ton of different botanical gardens both in the city and the surrounding suburbs. I really enjoyed wandering through and seeing what the different parks had to offer. Plus, with the cold weather, it never hurts to add a little greenery to spruce things up!
Plus, they had some bird feeders all over so there were tons of cute little birds fluttering around, which was a nice change of pace from the pigeons dive-bombing everyone else around the village. And I will never complain about all of the adorable dogs in sweaters walking around! This little guy was hands down my favorite. He was absolutely rocking that sweater and he knew it. He had such a little strut.
After we were done walking around the village, we headed to Reading Terminal, which is this awesome food market that has been around forever. There are restaurants or you can just buy groceries there, but I think anything you can possibly want you can find there. My favorite place in there is a Greek stand where you can get the best Gyros ever, plus some super amazing baklava that is dripping with honey. Ooooh, it's so good. But since it was so cold, my Dad and I opted for grilled cheese, and I got some tomato soup as well. There is nothing better on a cold day than grilled cheese and tomato soup!
We ended up heading home after that since we were chilly and it was supposed to start raining/snowing soon, but there is so much more to do in Philadelphia. The Comcast Building has a really neat show in their lobby that I think either goes off every 30 or 60 minutes. And it snows in the lobby! In Franklin Square they have a light show once it gets dark out that is appropriately enough based around Ben Franklin. Macy's has a super old but very charming light show, as well as a Dickens Village that you can walk through. There is a street (I want to say 13th) that goes ALL OUT in South Philadelphia with the decorations. I'm sure there are even more things to do that I don't even know of, but it is really a fun time if you are in the area!
What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions where you live?
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