Enchanted Land in S. Phila. has roots in G Boys

Ralph Gaudio came out of retirement to bring back Christmas.

"You've heard of The Miracle on 34th Street? Well, this is the miracle on 20th Street," Gaudio says, inviting me to walk through his Enchanted Land in South Philly.

More than 100 mechanical bears, reindeer, snowmen, superheroes, cartoon characters, and carolers inhabit the display tunnel of tinsel and twinkle Gaudio has built inside Kindy's Christmas Factory Outlet.

Enchanted Land is a series of whimsical, beautifully lit scenes - among them a snowy Victorian village, a candy factory, a circus - and a merry menagerie of moving figures. Many were featured in the much-missed Christmas attraction at the former G Boys Garden Center on Route 70 in Marlton.

The store was the successor to a Gaudio family produce business that his grandfather, also named Ralph, founded at Second and Kaighns in South Camden in the 1930s.

By the early '50s, the family also had begun selling Christmas trees at Broadway and Everett, and in the 1950s, Gaudio's opened a big garden center and Christmas store on Mount Ephraim Avenue near Fairview.

"My dad [Alfred] was just an unbelievable retailer," Gaudio recalls.

Suburban stores followed, and the Gaudio name became synonymous with Christmas in South Jersey for a half-century.

But amid fierce competition from big-box stores and traffic disruption due to the Marlton Circle reconstruction, G Boys closed in 2012.

Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the rest of the mechanical figures went into storage, and Gaudio went home to Sicklerville.

"You work like a dog, and you think, retirement has to be a great thing," Gaudio, 72, says. "But after a couple months, it's not a great thing. You start to wonder, 'Is this it? Am I done?' "

Apparently not. Kindy's, owned by a family firm with Philadelphia roots going back to 1902, invited Gaudio to re-create the G Boys Christmas attraction inside its seasonal outlet store on the 2900 block of South 20th Street.

The store is open Wednesdays through Sundays. Admission to Enchanted Land costs $3; children under 5 are free.

Gaudio "has helped us capture the spirit of Christmas," says Richard Kinderman, executive vice president with the parent company Brite Star Manufacturing Co.

"Kindy's is now a fun place," declares Gaudio, who brought back longtime collaborator Nick Kulina to help design and build Enchanted Land.

Work began in early October and was completed five weeks later.

The key challenge was to create an intimate, immersive walk-through Christmas environment under the towering ceilings and epic spaces at Kindy's.

"A lot of it was spontaneous creativity," says Kulina, 66, of Medford, a retired chemistry teacher at Delran and Willingboro high schools who began working part time at Gaudio's Mount Holly store 40 years ago.

A self-described Disney fanatic who owns a flavored-honey business, Kulina sought to ensure that the seams - lightbulbs, extension cords - wouldn't show.

"I'm creating a fantasy land for kids to enter," he explains.

Kids of all ages, as it turns out. During my tour, Joe and Celeste Testa of South Philly arrive with Audrey Toto, 2, their youngest grandchild.

"We're exposing a new one" to the Gaudio experience, says Celeste, 61, who remembers visiting the Pennsauken store when she was growing up in Gloucester Township.

The Enchanted Land "is not high-tech," she says. "It's nostalgic. It really brings back memories. That's what Christmas is about."

The Christmas pop tunes may be on repeat inside Enchanted Land, but reactions like Testa's are the real music to Gaudio's ears.

"That's the greatest thing about this business," he says. "We've made so many people happy."