The department store window and the feeling of Christmas

Early in 2020, after more than 100 years of operation, Prince George’s oldest department store will be shutting its doors for good.

There are lots of reasons to be saddened by this — just this week I walked in and immediately was helped by a staff member ready to educate me on the merits of different types of fluorescent lights — but right now I’m thinking about the loss of their seasonal window displays. Here’s what’s up right now:

There’s something special about walking down a cold, winter street and seeing warm brightness of a Christmas display window. I’m not alone in feeling this way — here’s Michael Enright from an essay he wrote in 2011 titled “The Magic of the Christmas Store Window“:

“Christmas did not become a real possibility, something that might actually happen, until my parents took me downtown to see the window.

“The window was at the corner of the Simpson’s department store. It was truly magic.”

Prince George is far from the only place to be losing these displays. After 70 years in Montreal, the Ogilvy’s Christmas display has been dismantled and transported to a museum, and the New York Times has been documenting the demise of department store windows for a while.

Of course, we can still buy all the same things, and more, without the department store, both online and in mega-retailers on the edge of town. But it’s not the retail opportunitie that are being lost. It’s the experience of seasonal shopping, the idea that our retail options change with the seasons and that the stores we buy from are in some way connected to our overall community. This is captured well by Matthias Leyerer writing in the The New Conservative (I’ve no idea what the politics of this publication are overall, but Leyerer is also an author at Strong Cities, which is very much focused on urbanism). His piece is titled “A Traditional Christmas Needs A Real Downtown“:

“Whether it’s the constant sale of toys at our big retailers, or the year-round availability of holiday products through the internet, there is nothing actually special about shopping at Christmas…

“The mall and the big-box stores feel even more depressing around the holidays, as you walk through an expanse of parked cars in the cold and snow. There’s no reward for your misery: Target and Wal-Mart still feel the same when you get inside, except that they’re probably more crowded. You’ve been here a thousand times before and you’ll be back next Tuesday to return the gifts you didn’t want and pick up toilet paper.”

A couple weeks ago, I spent a Saturday afternoon browsing through the shops still making a go of it downtown. I met a couple who just opened up a physical store after finding success with online sale of custom shirt prints, I got stocking stuffers for my wife I never would have thought of just browsing online, and I felt like I was experiencing both my city and the season in a way that I never would on Amazon or in Costco. It felt like Christmas.