NYC Department Store Holiday Window Tour

The night before Thanksgiving, while y’all may have been on a plane, prepping for a feast, or in line for a pre-parade glimpse of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloons, I was getting re-acquainted with an old friend: the holiday windows at our fabulous NYC department stores. It’s the only time my hubby doesn’t cringe when I say I’m heading out to “just look” as this kind of looking doesn’t cost a dime.

We started our window-viewing at Barney’s (Madison Ave and 61st) celebrating 35 years of Saturday Night Live (Coneheads, Weekend Update, etc.). No movement, but great art. They even feature a window of artwork along 61st Street of tiles for sale by students at the East Harlem School. We then walked the two blocks over to Bloomingdales (Lexington and 60th Street) to check out their holiday window displays. We could easily spot the building from blocks away as it appeared to be draped in a blanket of white lights. With a theme of “Wonderfun,” the windows were colorful,  and several were interactive: taking video of you on the sidewalk and putting it into a frame (we had to drag my four-year-old away from this!), transposing your smile into a whimsical mouth, etc.  My son really liked the “Dynamic Duo” window with full-size Batman and Robin characters in line with President Obama and Michelle to visit Santa.

Next we trekked over to Bergdorf Goodman (Fifth Avenue and 58th), where we spent the longest time studying each window – they were stunning and incredibly complex. . .and reminded me of the CW’s Gossip Girl. Their windows were inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll ( “A Compendium of Curiosities”). The sideways chess window and window-sized wooden doll house windows were remarkable – after the clothes and acessories of course. We had several great photo opps of holiday decorations down 5th Ave from here, with the huge sparkly snowflake strung in the intersection of Fifth Ave and 57th Street, Trump Tower holiday lighting, and several others all the way down to Saks in the distance. It was easy to spot Saks next with giant blue lit snowflakes cascading down the storefront. Their windows featured “Twinky” a twinkling snowflake, and the theme carried over to inside Saks’ with the walls decorated with falling snowflakes.

Up to this point, we’d spent about an hour and fifteen minutes on our tour, and our four-year-old was growing tired of walking, so we cabbed it down to a drive-by of Lord & Taylor’s windows on Fifth Ave and 39th Street. They featured old-school traditional holiday scenes and celebrations, but weren’t as exciting as what we had just seen. We saved Macy’s for last and it was a fantastic finale!

If you’ll view the windows with kids and won’t have time to hit all of the stores, I recommend breaking this tour up into three “family-friendly” visits:

1) Visit Macy’s on 34th Street with enormous, colorful windows filled with a lot of movable parts and recognizable scenes for children to identify. (i.e. Santaland, Mircale on 34th Street) Along Broadway, one of their windows features an interactive opportunity to ”write a letter to Santa” – scroll through options to complete your letter. The kiddos will likely beg to go inside to see Santaland. Do it. If you have time and energy, walk up 5th Ave to see the Lord & Taylor windows.

2) Visit Saks – they have a smaller stretch of active windows, and you can then step inside to see the twinkly winter wonderland lights, with falling snowflakes lit on the walls of the first floor. From here, you can cross the street to American Girl Place, and another block down is the Build-a-Bear Workshop which has been made over as Santa’s Workshop for the holidays. Or, head across from Saks’ to Rockefeller Center to enjoy the festive decorations, ice rink, huge tree, and even watch the trains inside the Lionel Train Store at 30 Rock (it’s on the side across from Radio City Music Hall).

3) Visit Bergdorf’s, Bloomingdale’s and Barney’s.

Because the holidays are filled with so many family-friendly traditions, I’d have to recommend the most child-friendly windows along the route this year in order:

1. Macy’s
2. Bloomingdale’s
3. Saks
4. Lord & Taylor
5. Bergdorf-Goodman
6. Barney’s

Spot any other visit-worthy holiday shop displays about town? Let us know! Leave a comment below.

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