The Wanamaker Light Show returned with gusto this weekend after Philadelphians held their breath over the last year about the fate of the deeply cherished tradition.

For nearly 70 years, the voice of John Facenda, then Julie Andrews, and a charmingly low-tech cast of twinkling characters have ushered in the holiday merriment for generations of Philadelphians. This year’s spectacle took on renewed significance as the future of the Light Show and the adjoining Dickens Village dimmed.

“This is deeply personal to us as Philadelphians, and we like to save stuff. We’re nostalgic to a fault,” said Kathryn Ott Lovell, leader of the Save the Light Show effort, a grassroots campaign that secured the show’s encore despite the sale of its longtime host, the Macy’s store in Center City.

The successful fundraising effort included more than 700 individual donors and gifts from philanthropic foundations.

“Christmas isn’t Christmas without the Wanamaker Light Show,” said Paulette Steffa, who was among the first people who lined up at the door for the Saturday matinee, braving temperatures in the low 40s and gusty winds. By noon, the line outside the Wanamaker Building snaked from Market to Drury Streets; just 15 minutes later, about 1,100 people flooded the famed foyer. More than 7,000 attended the show’s opening day on Friday.

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Steffa, 72, has been a Light Show regular since its debut in 1956, when she was 3 years old. On Saturday, she was decked out in a red sweater matching the show’s silhouettes and a plastic John Wanamaker shopping bag from the Bicentennial.

At the stroke of 12:30 p.m., kids and kids-at-heart alike flocked around the Wanamaker Eagle and tilted their chins upward to the magic Christmas tree. They oohed and aahed at the twinkling candy canes, glitzy Sugar Plum Fairies, and jolly snowmen.

Debbie Miller, 68, came as a child with her parents, then with her husband, then with their children — and maybe, someday, she hopes, their grandchildren. The show’s warmth melts away troubles, she said.

“There’s that feeling of there’s still some good in this world, there’s still some positive energy in this world,” Miller, of Chester County, said. “We all have our daily struggles, but when you come here, it’s a little bit of an escape from that. It just makes you good.”

» READ MORE: The Wanamaker Light Show and Dickens Village are safe this year. The future remains uncertain.

While many, like Steffa and the Millers, are regular visitors, Saturday was a long-awaited homecoming for Evelyn Poole: This was the 73-year-old’s first time seeing the show since she worked in the Wanamakers lingerie department and Santa’s Workshop as a teenager. She brought along her 7-year-old grandson for the occasion.

What will happen to the beloved attraction in the coming years remains uncertain: There is more money to be raised, ownership to be settled, and a long-term preservation plan to be devised.

But for at least one more season, Philadelphians can rejoice in the glow of the magic Christmas tree.