Winter Saturnalia Warms Bryn Mawr's Coldest Months

The Bryn Mawr Neighborhood Association's Saturnalia, the neighborhood's marquee winter event, ran Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, from 3:30 to 9:30 p.m. centered on 400 Penn Ave. S.. The afternoon-into-evening festival is the association's answer to the long stretch when the lakes freeze and daylight shrinks and many neighborhoods go quiet.

The 2025 program included snowflake crafting in the basement of Big Hill Books from 3:30 to 5 p.m., the Smiling Drum Corp and pianist Rod Gordon from 4:30 to 6 p.m., and RetroFizz jazz from 7 to 9 p.m. Greenhouse Salon hosted Santa visits with aura photography, Spruce Salon sold hot cocoa and merchandise and ran a local-artist pop-up from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., and the event collected snowpants and winter-jacket donations for Bryn Mawr Elementary students. Participating businesses including Big Hill Books, Cuppa Java, La Mesa, Sundog Tattoo, Greenhouse Salon, Bryn Mawr Pizza and Deli, and Studio 411 offered promotions.

Saturnalia rounds out a year-round calendar that also includes the summer Ice Cream Social and Scoop-Off and the autumn Sip and Stroll, so the neighborhood has a gathering in every season. The off-season event is the hardest to pull off and, by the association's logic, does the most to keep block-by-block relationships from going dormant over a long winter. The name borrows from the ancient midwinter festival.