Celebration Turns 30: Town History, Snow, and Pizza Near Celebration

Happy birthday, Celebration. Today, Saturday, November 7, our neighbors down the road are throwing a Founders Day party for the town's 30th anniversary. We wanted to say congratulations the way we know best, with a little history first and then a pizza plan for tonight's dinner.

If you grew up around here, Celebration is the place where snow falls every December in a state that never gets any. If you just moved to Osceola County, it can look like a movie set, and in a way it started as one, because Disney drew it up from scratch. The town is younger than a lot of the people who live in it.

What's happening at Celebration's Founders Day for the 30th anniversary

The town's Founders Day page lays out a full Saturday. It starts at 10:30 in the morning with a Veterans Day parade from Lakeside Park to Founders Park, then a ceremony at Founders Park. Right after that, at 11:45, everyone's invited to stand together for a 30th anniversary town photo. If you've ever wanted to be in a picture with half your neighbors, this is your shot.

The evening runs from 5 to 10 PM, and admission is free and open to the public. There's a Kid Zone with inflatables, plus food and drink tents to keep everyone fed. At 7 PM comes a Pop2000 concert with Chris Kirkpatrick of NSYNC, O-Town, Ryan Cabrera, and LFO, which means a lot of parents in the crowd tonight will know every word. A drone show presented by AdventHealth lights up the sky at 9:20, and Ryan Cabrera stays on to DJ after that. The town says the schedule can still change, so check the page before you head out.

The party lands in November because the first Founders Day was November 12, 1996, the day the downtown was finished and its shops and restaurants opened.

How Disney built a town: a short history of Celebration, Florida

The story starts in the late 1960s, when Walt Disney's team quietly bought about 27,000 acres across Osceola and Orange counties. Decades later, part of that land became Celebration. The town covers roughly 4,900 acres, and about half of that is kept as permanent conservation land.

According to a history of Celebration from News 6, Disney held an architecture competition for ideas in 1987, announced the town in 1991, and broke ground in 1994. Interest ran so high that in November 1995 Disney held a lottery to decide which families would get to buy the first lots and build the first homes.

The first family moved in on June 18, 1996. By November the downtown was ready, and the town held its first Founders Day.

The plan was old-fashioned on purpose. Architect Robert A.M. Stern worked on the master plan with the firm Cooper, Robertson & Partners, and "pattern books" kept the homes and streets in step with one small-town look. You can still see it on any block you walk today.

Disney has since stepped back. In January 2004 it sold the downtown, with its shops, offices, and apartments, to Lexin Capital. Today Celebration is a community in its own right, with a big hospital campus, Celebration Health, which Florida Hospital built and which now carries the AdventHealth name.

The architecture of Celebration: famous names on small buildings

For anyone who likes buildings, the little downtown is full of work by big names, because Michael Eisner, Disney's CEO at the time, wanted well-known architects. A Slate look at the town's architecture walks through who did what.

Philip Johnson designed Town Hall, the one with the crowd of columns out front. Michael Graves did the post office, and Cesar Pelli drew the movie theater in an Art Deco style. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown designed the bank. Graham Gund did the hotel to look like a big old house turned into an inn, and the late Charles Moore designed the information center. Stern and Jaquelin Robertson handled many of the everyday shop and apartment buildings in between.

That makes a good family game downtown: see who can spot each building first. Kids tend to pick out the post office right away, and grown-ups usually stop at Town Hall to count columns.

Snow on Market Street, Celebration's most famous holiday trick

Every year from late November through December 31, Celebration's Town Center puts on Now Snowing, and flakes fall over Market Street in the evening. In recent seasons the snow has come down at 6, 7, 8, and 9 PM, admission and parking have been free, and there have been extras like ice skating on a synthetic rink, carriage rides, and a little train. The event goes back to the late 1990s.

Every Florida kid figures out on the first night that it isn't ice. The flakes are a soapy foam that locals call "snoap." It won't melt in your hand the way real snow does, and it won't make a snowman. It still feels like magic when it starts to fall and the whole street looks up at once.

Bring a towel for the car seat, because snoap leaves kids damp. The town center posts each year's dates and times, so look there for this season's schedule before you go.

Things to do in Celebration with kids, any time of year

You don't have to wait for December. The downtown wraps around Lake Rianhard, and a paved loop of about seven tenths of a mile circles it, flat enough for strollers and scooters. There are rocking chairs facing the water if somebody needs a break.

The Town Center holds a farmers market every Sunday morning, year round. It's a good place to pick up local produce and let the kids sample something sweet while you browse.

For longer outings, Celebration has more than 20 miles of trails for walking and biking. Pack water and sunscreen, even in November. And if there's a building fan in the family, the architecture walk downtown makes a free afternoon.

A family pizza night for Celebration neighbors

After a parade in the morning and a concert at night, nobody wants to cook, so let us do it. We're a family-owned New York-style pizzeria in the Walmart Plaza on Osceola Parkway in Kissimmee, and Celebration is a neighbor of ours. On Saturdays we're open from 11 AM to 9:30 PM.

Here's how we'd build a pizza night for a house full of hungry people. Start with an 18" New York-style pie and fold your slice the way New Yorkers do. For a bigger crowd, our Big Family special brings 2 XL one-topping pizzas, 20 wings, 6 garlic knots, and a 2 liter of soda for $52.99. Daily specials are claimed in store, so mention the special when you come in.

For something everybody can argue about, put The Bronx Bomber, loaded with pepperoni, sausage, ham, salami, bacon, and meatballs, next to a Veggie Pizza with mushrooms, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, spinach, and black olives. Kids who want "just cheese" get a cheese pie, and nobody has to negotiate. You get one sauce per 10 wings, from a list that includes Mild, Hot, Garlic Parmesan, and Lemon Pepper, and every dinner comes with 2 garlic knots. It's a birthday, so save room for dessert: a cannoli, or a slice of NY Style Cheesecake to share.

You can order online for pickup or delivery, or call us at (407) 933-8800. If you'd rather eat out, come sit in one of our red booths under the New York skyline painted on the wall. Families looking for pizza near Celebration can start with our page New York Pizza Near Celebration. And if you're new to the area and still deciding where your regular spot will be, our page Best Pizza Place in Kissimmee tells you what we're about.

Thirty years ago, the first families took a chance on a brand-new town with no history at all. Now it has thirty years of it, plus a birthday party with a drone show. From all of us at The New York Pizza Company, happy 30th, Celebration. When you're ready for dinner, order online or give us a call.