More Holiday Philly Phun

While in the city, be sure to stop by to visit Santaland and Dickens Village at Macy’s Center City. Open until Christmas Eve “Dickens Village” is a 6,000-square-foot Village on the 3rd floor of Macy’s that transports visitors back to 1840s London and brings Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol” to life with vintage animatronic displays of Dickens characters. The Village walk-through ends in a visit with Santa. A favorite Philadelphia tradition for over 20 years, “Dicken’s Village” is free of charge.

Also, from now until December 31, see the Christmas Light Show and Wanamaker Organ Concert in the famed historical Grand Court atrium of Macy’s Center City. At this great family-oriented event, visitors will see snowflakes, ballerinas and reindeer float beyond the atrium’s fourstory-high velvet curtain. Set to music, more than 100,000 LED lights combine to shape amazing holiday-themed images. The annual Macy’s Christmas Light Show is free to the public. Shows occur daily at 10 a.m., and 12, 2, 4, 6 and 8 p.m.

Before leaving Center City, there are a few more “must visit” stops. One is the Comcast Building. Shown on the state-of-theart Comcast Experience video wall at The Comcast Center, the Comcast Holiday Spectacular — celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2018 — is filled with sights and sounds of the season. Now an annual holiday tradition, the 15-minute Comcast Holiday Spectacular takes visitors on a festive, musical journey. The show also includes a snippet of The Nutcracker performed by the renowned Pennsylvania Ballet. More than two million residents and visitors have seen the show since its opening in 2008. The 15-minute show features sing-a-longs and a virtual sleigh ride. The Comcast Experience is one of the world’s largest highest-resolution LED displays.

Spanning 83.3 feet wide by 25.4 feet high, the 2,100 square-foot video wall is five times the resolution of high-definition television and one of the world’s highest-resolution LED screens. Visitors can catch the show at the top of each hour from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., excluding weekdays at 5 p.m.

One of Philly’s favorite holiday tradition that always deserves a jaunt into Center City every year is “A Philly POPS Christmas: Spectacular Sounds of the Season” at the Kimmel Center, with ten performances from December 1–22.

This year, Music Director-Designate and former Radio City Christmas Spectacular conductor Todd Ellison makes his POPS Christmas debut by conducting an all-new, festive musical program, featuring the 65-piece POPS orchestra, Hamilton star Mandy Gonzalez, organist