Loose Leaf Notes

At a Christmas cookie party last weekend, I ran into a young Floyd friend who lives and works in New York City.  He, an artist who has designed sets, software and office spaces, learned most everything he knows about design from Lego construction.  My memory may have exaggerated that he built his bed out of legos when he was a teenager, but he verified that I was not too far off.  Most recently, he worked on the Christmas window display at Bergdorf Goodman, one of NYC’s major department stores.

  When I got home I googled Bergdorf Goodman to see the work, which was more an art installation than a window display.

I watched a video clip of all the major department stores reveal their holiday windows, lit up with fanfare like a Christmas cirque du soleil, and found myself fantasizing about living in NYC, or at least visiting at Christmastime.

Holiday department store window displays were a part of my childhood Christmases in Boston.  I remember the moving mannequins, children on sleds, snowball fights, snow globes and girls with white fur hats and muffs in Jordan Marsh windows.Once, I went with my family to the festival of lights at Edaville Railroad in Plymouth.  Maybe I was six.  There was snow on the ground.  I remember my grandmother in a fur coat, riding on Santa’s train and being convinced we were in the North Pole.

I can’t take the subway to see the trees in Boston Commons lit up for Christmas, but I can take the short ride downtown and enjoy our own homegrown window displays, some of which are posted above and include Jeanie O’Neill’s Boutique, Republic of Floyd, New Mountain Mercantile, Bell Gallery, Winter Sun, Farmers Supply.