Christmas is a time meant to be spent with family and loved ones. This is just one of my family’s traditions that can hopefully start an idea for yours.
I am from DelCo. Well, really I live in Media, and its basically Newtown Square which is pretty much considered “fake DelCo.” However, my dad is originally from the heart of DelCo, Sharon Hill (Mr. Stinger area). Around Christmas time, our whole family gets in the car, drives into the real DelCo, and looks at Christmas lights.
I am the youngest in my family. This means that I get the seat in the car with absolutely no leg room and I am far too close to my brothers than I would like to be, but the experience is always a great one when I look back on it.
We start off by looking at the Christmas lights on houses close to ours in Media. Typically, there are certain neighborhoods who go all out and houses seem to compete against each other to have the best lights in the neighborhood. Our neighborhood is a pretty mellow one when it comes to Christmas lights, so it is always fun to see the houses that look amazing.
We then go through Newtown Square and Marple and look at some more houses en route to the Drexel Hill/Sharon Hill deep DelCo area. There are always certain houses here that put up as many lights as Clark Griswold did in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and they look awesome, but my favorite lights are the ones when the entire street contributes.
The streets in deep DelCo are much narrower and the houses are fairly close together. This lets the houses connect their lights to the other houses next door. Instead of one house dominating the neighborhood with its lights, the entire street is lit up and there is a sense of pride in having your house look nice for Christmas.
When you make the turn into one of these streets, it is pretty breathtaking. People stop their cars and take pictures. There is no competition on these streets, it is a team effort to make their street look nice.
After this, we drive to the houses my dad grew up in in Drexel Hill, Sharon Hill, and Upper Darby. While some of the Christmas lights on these houses really look like motion detector spotlights, it is cool to hear my dad’s stories that he has in each of the houses and see how his life has progressed over the years.
We look at some more lights and then head to the greatest pizza place in all of DelCo and possibly ever. If you are Mr. Stinger, you probably know what I am talking about. If you are not, I am talking about the one and only Pica’s Pizza (they recently opened another in West Chester but it’s not the same).
Pica’s is home to the infamous upside down, square pizza. A lot of people hear the words “upside down pizza” and scoff at the idea. These people cannot even begin to imagine what they are missing out on. Words can’t begin to describe just how good a pizza from Pica’s truly is. The first bite of a Pica’s pizza is honestly a life changing moment, one that you will probably never forget.
As my brothers and I get older and older, this whole night is something that may not seem fun at all. But every time we do it, I look back on it as an amazing experience and a night I will remember for a long time. Even if your parents are not from DelCo, I would highly recommend doing this for a few hours one night during Christmas break. You will get to experience what all of the DelCo talk is about, get some really good pizza, and have a great time doing it.
