Christmas window

A Christmas window is a special window display prepared for the Christmas shopping season at department stores and other retailers. Retailers around the world become particularly famous for their Christmas window displays and they often become tourist attractions. Christmas windows are usually thematic and can include animatronics.

Several retailers in New York City attract shoppers and tourists to their Christmas window displays. Macy’s established the practice at its New York City store when it debuted an animated shop window in 1883. "At Christmastime, it is often Spaeth Design that is behind the windows and store displays of many of the nation's major retailers, as well as the lobby displays of some of New York's major hotels and office buildings: the Palace, the Harley, the St. Moritz and the Park Lane hotels, and the Park Avenue Plaza and Gulf and Western office buildings." ~ New York Times

AM&A's flagship department store in Buffalo, New York was known locally for its Victorian 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 Lord & Taylor's, a few blocks up on Fifth Avenue. In Pittsburg, Horne's was one of the retailers known for its Christmas window displays. In Boston, Filene's would hold a Christmas tree 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, and then to City Hall Plaza.

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