Fenwicks window, Christmas 2009 - geograph

D'vantuthe Saint Hélyi Jèrri Noué 2012 a

A Christmas window is a special

window display A display window, also a shop window ( British English) or store window (American English), is a window in a shop displaying items for sale or otherwise designed to attract customers to the store. Usually, the term refers to larger windows in th ...

prepared for the Christmas shopping season at

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

s and other retailers. Some retailers around the world have become noted for their Christmas window displays, with some becoming tourist attractions. Christmas windows are sometimes thematic and may include

animatronics Animatronics refers to mechatronic puppets. They are a modern variant of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films and in theme park attractions. It is a multidisciplinary field integrating puppetry, anatomy ...

North America

Brading Experience Carol Singers window display

D'vantuthe Saint Hélyi Jèrri Noué 2013 5

Several retailers in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

attract shoppers and tourists to their Christmas window displays, including

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

and

Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor was the oldest brick and mortar department store in the United States, in business from 1826 to 2020. The brand was purchased during former owner Le Tote's 2020 liquidation bankruptcy and relaunched by new owner, Saadia Group, as a ...

established the practice at its New York City store when it debuted an animated shop window in 1883. AM&A's flagship department store in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

was known locally for its

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

Christmas windows. Auction internet company Chartitybuzz auctioned the experience of watching Simon Doonan create the Barney's Christmas windows to benefit Christie's Green Auction in 2010 with a final bid received for $60,000. Kaufmann's offered Christmas windows and Santa Land. Fees were charged to see Lonnie Hanzon's Christmas window display 12/25: A Holiday Store in Omaha in 1987. Until it closed in 1989, Altman's was known for its Christmas window displays that rivaled

's, a few blocks up on Fifth Avenue. In Pittsburgh, Horne's was one of the retailers known for its Christmas window displays. In Boston, Filene's would hold a

Christmas tree A Christmas tree is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer, such as a spruce, pine or fir, or an artificial tree of similar appearance, associated with the celebration of Christmas. The custom was further developed in early modern G ...

lighting and Jordan Marsh would present a series festive Christmas window displays known as the "Enchanted Village". The window display has since relocated to Boston's

Hynes Convention Center The John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center is a convention center located in Boston, Massachusetts. It was built in 1988 from a design by architects Kallmann, McKinnell & Wood. It replaced the John B. Hynes Memorial Auditorium, also ...

, and then to

City Hall Plaza City Hall Plaza may refer to: * City Hall Plaza (Boston), Massachusetts, USA * City Hall Plaza (Manchester) City Hall Plaza, City Hall Plaza Tower or 900 Elm Street (U.S. Route 3), is a prominent office tower in Manchester, New Hampshire. Sin ...

. In

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

, James Aird Nesbitt was in charge of the traditional Christmas window displays at the Ogilvy department store. In 1947, he commissioned

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

toymaker

Steiff Steiff is a German-based plush toy company. It was founded in 1880 by Margarete Steiff, a seamstress. The toys began as elephants, and were originally a design Steiff found in a magazine and sold as pincushions to her customers. However, childre ...

to create two animated holiday scenes known as "The Mill in the Forest" and "The Enchanted Village". The displays included dozens of handcrafted mechanical toy animals and more than a hundred moveable parts. In 2008, the displays were refurbished.

Woodward's Woodward's Stores Ltd. was a department store chain that operated in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, for 101 years, before its sale to the Hudson's Bay Company. History Charles Woodward established the first Woodward store at the corner o ...

Department Store in Vancouver's retail shopping district was also known for its Christmas window displays.

Europe

Tom Keogh designed the annual Christmas windows for

Galeries Lafayette The Galeries Lafayette () is an upmarket French department store chain, the biggest in Europe. Its flagship store is on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris but it now operates in a number of other locations in France and ot ...

department store in Paris during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Fenwick (department store) in Newcastle is known locally for its Christmas window display. Since 1971 there has been a Christmas display in the shop's windows, and people come from near and far to look at them. There are records going back to the 1930s to indicate that displays have been done. The 2009 theme was a traditional

nativity scene In the Christian tradition, a nativity scene (also known as a manger scene, crib, crèche ( or ), or in Italian ''presepio'' or ''presepe'', or Bethlehem) is the special exhibition, particularly during the Christmas season, of art objects rep ...

, differing from the 2002 aliens theme ("Christmas in Another World") which showed aliens celebrating Christmas and sparked discussion in the letters page of the local papers. The Arab dress provoked some debate. The commentators may not have been familiar with the location of

Bethlehem Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital ...

. In 2011, the store held the 40th anniversary of the store's Christmas window display tradition. The store is best known for its extravagant windows, filled with detailed sets and sophisticated moving figures, which appears every Christmas and almost rivals the windows in Liberty's. The themes are taken mainly from fairy tales and children's stories. The figures move and are accompanied by music. In 2011,

Anthony Ausgang Anthony Ausgang (born Anthony Charles Grant Thompson, May 22, 1959) is an artist and writer born in Pointe-à-Pierre, Trinidad and Tobago in 1959 who lives and works in Los Angeles.''Vacation from Reality: The Art of Anthony Ausgang'' () Ausga ...

designed the Christmas windows for the La Rinascente Department Store in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

with larger-than-life three-dimensional models of his trademark psychedelic cartoon cats.

Bertrand Planes Bertrand Planes (born 1975) is a French visual artist who lives and works in Paris, France. His artworks often involve subverting and finding new uses for everyday objects. Biography He represented France in the 2005 La Paz Bienniale. His wo ...

designed Christmas window displays for Le Bon Marché in Paris.

Australia

In Australia, the Sydney department store David Jones presents an annual animated Christmas Window display. Traditionally these have often featured snowy northern hemisphere Christmas scenarios, but in 2014 the windows are set in a distinctly Australian summer, featuring beach and rainforest scenes, based on the book " Reindeer's Christmas Surprise" by Australian author Ursula Dubosarsky and illustrator Sue De Gennaro. In

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

, the Myer department store began presenting an annual Christmas window display in 1956, and later added the annual

Myer Christmas Parade Myer Christmas Parade was an annual event held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia organised by Myer Pty Ltd in conjunction with the City of Melbourne. Attracting a crowd of over 40,000, the parade commenced at the top of Spring Street and ende ...

. Displays have typically included scenes from Christmas related stories such as The 12 Days of Christmas, A Christmas Carol and '' How The Grinch Stole Christmas'' as well as nativity scenes and scenes from children's stories and fairy tales. For the past few decades, displays have featured animated characters. '' Uno's Garden'' was chosen as the theme of the 2007 Myer Christmas Windows in Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia.

Pop culture

The 1947 film ''

Miracle on 34th Street ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (initially released as ''The Big Heart'' in the United Kingdom) is a 1947 American List of Christmas films, Christmas comedy-drama film released by 20th Century Fox, written and directed by George Seaton and based on ...

'' and 1983 film '' A Christmas Story'' feature Christmas window displays. The book cover of the 1916 children's novel ''Christmas Holidays at Merryvale'' by Alice Hale Burnett features children peering into a Christmas window.

North America

Europe

Australia

Pop culture

See also

References

Further reading