Christmas Displays On 5th Avenue, 2009

Over at Creating the Hive, Busy Little Elf wrote a post about her past experience as a designer for windows at business, and mentioned her hope of someday taking a lead role in coordinating all of the shops on the main street of a small town so that they put on one grand, united, and spectacular Christmas display, reminiscent of 5th avenue. My reply was that I think this is an AWESOME idea, and mentioned that if she was interested, for the past few years I've taken pics of the 5th avenue displays, and offered to share. This offer was accepted, and I decided I might as well put them up over here instead of in a comment in her blog, this way everyone could see!

As an introduction to my interest in this topic, I am a strange creature. I'm an agnostic, non-practicing Jew who LOVES Christmas. I was raised celebrating Hanukkah, Christmas (actually two Christmas', as we would celebrate with each of my parents separately), and my birthday all within the space of a couple of weeks. We would have the menorah in one window and the Christmas tree in the other, and lighting the candles was done with as much joy as decorating the tree. My two theories for why we did this are one, that celebrating Christmas is fun and my mother didn't want my brother and I to feel left out and two, that my mother and father both love giving people presents. My love of Christmas has persisted; it's of great sadness to me that I've not been able to put up a Christmas tree three years running, I have tons of ornaments, and I love giving people presents, too! Thus, I go out, and I spend an evening getting some pictures of the City I love around the holidays.

When I went to look up what I had to offer, I found I had three sets: Christmas, 2009, Christmas, 2008, and a small set of non-Christmas related Bergdorf Goodman windows (I think I have some other miscellaneous shots of the Bergdorf windows floating around in other sets, I'll have to check.) Furthermore, two of these sets in particular are BIG, especially the Christmas 2009 set, so I'm going to break this in to multiple posts, starting with the 2009 pics, which are definitely the best. I'm going to pick out the highlights - but even that will be a lot, I had a heck of time choosing! If you'd like to see the rest, check out the set! :)

Christmas Display in a Fountain in Union Square, part of the annual fair there:


Macy's:
The 2009 Macy's windows told the story of how letters sent by children are sent to Santa Claus.

This shot isn't blurry cause I'm a bad photographer (not entirely, anyway) - it's blurry because the letters were spinning around!


The little girl in the purple hat was staring at the display in rapt wonder. It was really charming to see.

Lord and Taylors:
The 2009 Lord and Taylors windows were, I think, telling the story of the Nutcracker - but there were a lot of scenes unrelated to that, too.




...and don't forget the fashion! L&T didn't, they had several stunning wedding dresses out, that were all reminiscent of the season.


Saks Fifth Avenue:
The windows at Saks featured a lot of fashion; the windows along 5th told the story of a snowflake (I think - maybe a star...) who traveled the world to understand Christmas. It had voice narration and everything! But the fashion was the highlight there!






I didn't take any pictures of the Rockefeller tree that were worth a darn, because I took shots last year, and the area was mobbed, I was getting sick of dealing with all the crowds, and I was FROZEN (remember when I wrote about the bed bugs? well, I packed up all my belongings in May, and very stupidly did not consider what would happen to me in December if all my winter stuff was packed! So I went through the first couple months of the winter by layering two fall jackets and wearing a big snug scarf and hat that I crocheted - no gloves - my hands were so numb!! - but then I got a winter coat, and mom lent me a pair of her gloves, and life was much better. :) ) So, frozen up, I hurried on to Bergdorf Goodman, with a brief stop at Juicy Couture, which had some odd windows featuring circus performances, and the Disney Store, which was sadly lackluster considering their potential.

Bergdorf Goodman:
The theme of the Bergdorf Goodman windows was Alice in Wonderland, though there were also some fashion-dedicated windows. However, at Bergdorf's, even fashion oriented windows can be AWESOME. :) It's hard to pick only a couple...(i took 70 pics of the Bergdorf windows...)





It's very common for the Bergdorf windows to have a TON going on, so I generally take an overview shot, and then a bunch of targeted shots. This is an example of one of the overview shots, then I took 1 - the pelican, 2 - the mannequin, 3 - the Humpty Dumpty, 4 - the White Rabbit, 5 - the hedgehog and book, 6 - the dog, 7 - the globe, 8 - the lizard, and 9 - the flamingo. There's just SO MUCH there!! I could have taken loads more...


This one is a detail of this window.





...I'll stop there, lest I go on and on! If you want to see more, once again, check out the set!

In the imminent future, I'll post another couple posts highlighting my other two sets of shots of the 5th Ave. windows, and of course I'll be going this year, and when I do, there WILL be pictures! Hope ya'll enjoyed this brief tour.