Did you guys have the same or similar magazines over with you??
Just managed to pick up a few, very interesting "Fly on the Wall" mags For dealers etc(or Hoover Men & Women)...just found out that the local store in Liverpool, (George Henry Lee`s) won the title best in region for its Christmas Electrical Shop window, my father always took us to look at the lights, shop displays and father Christmas the day before Christmas Eve to give mum a chance to get sorted without us kids being around, GHL was always my favourite for the electrical display along with Lewis`s & C&A Mode`s as my aunt was their window dresser!!!...great memories!!!
Talk Fondly of day trips with their parents to Liverpool at christmas to see the window displays. My Mums dad worked for the railway thus rail organised trip for staff and family and it was always a treat to get the train to go look at everything. One reason my Mum (44) holds Lewis's to be a special shop to only visit at Christmas and buys special gifts from there and not a store to visit at any regular time. My dad (47) would have his mum take him too for a treat. I cant help but feel sorry us kids of the 80s never experienced such wonderful days out based on simplicity of wonderfully theatrical shop displays. Winter wonderland for me was the flashy lights and electronic toy displays in Tandy!
“Mmmmm… aww…,” as I literally just said out loud. :)
Very interesting, Mike and Rob. :)
I have to agree with you there, Rob, about us children of the 80s – we didn’t really have particularly original or imaginative things to see at Christmas, which is a great shame. For a start, we were also at the beginning, really, of the ‘consumer Christmas’, which is even worse now. Admittedly, many of the things we have wanted for years are consumer items, but it’s the feeling from certain aspects of Christmas that today, although still nice, are somewhat samey at times.
I know my parents – Mum aged 56 and Dad 57 – have often said Christmas was somewhat different during the childhoods, which is obvious of course. :)
I suppose we would all have to look far and wide to find something akin to what we remember or would like to see. :) The problem is that we simply do not have the time these days! :)
Getting back on topic, I remember seeing a train set I wanted in the local Co-op shop window. This was a large store that catered for pretty much everything, though it is now our local independent dealer – appliance galore! :) We’ve been going there for our white goods for nearly 20 years now, and all of our recent Miele stuff came from there.
Anyway, back on topic again! LOL :) I saw an InterCity 125 train set in the Co-op shop window. This was 1982, when I was three. We would often pass the shop, and I would stand and look at the window display in awe – I simply *had* to have that train set! hehe :) However, with the way I was brought up – unlike many of today’s children! hehe :) – I was not promised anything for Christmas, so I never knew if I was going to get it. I just remember going up to my grandmother’s (Mum’s Mum) on Christmas Day 1982 and being shown a box, all wrapped up, that was suspiciously similar in dimensions to a train set box! :)
Now, my parents often tell me I got so excited at the time that I literally shook on the spot and couldn’t even speak! hehe :) Ah… memories! :)
On the matter of shop displays, our Hotpoint Microtronic L.E. washing machine was on prominent windows display, and I do believe it was at Christmas. It was even raised off the ground slightly on a step! LOL :) I remember being about as tall as the machine itself (LOL! :)) because the green progress indicators were about level with me, and they really caught my eye, as did the LED display – I was fascinated! I got to choose our washing machine at three or four years old! LOL :) The machine carried on non-stop until I was 16! I remember going back to the same shop, where my aunt was the manager when we got the Hotpoint and then when we went to get a new one, and it was quite surreal! :)
It was Mum’s aunt who decorated the store for Christmas. She now works in a small local shop that mainly sells vacuum cleaners and spares, so appliances seem to run in both sides of our family somewhere! hehe :) The larger independent dealer scrambled to get her once Rumbelows closed down in 1995 but, alas, the small shop got her instead! :)
Anyway, our local independent dealer, as mentioned earlier, makes an effort in terms of displays. :) The store itself is always very neat and tidy anyway, but the displays are also fitting at this time of year. :) Very friendly staff, one of whom has known us for years – I give him plenty of headaches with my fastidiousness! ;)
Does anyone have any old photos of shop window displays or modern ones that are a real delight that could be put up here? :)
I don't know if Christmas still holds the same magic anymore that it did when I was growing up in the late 50's early 60's. I'm going to ask my neighbors who have small kids and see what they say but then they're also younger than me only being in their 30's. From the looks of things I can't see how it could, they have everything in spades we never had. A backyard swimmingpool, driveway basketball hoops, 3 cars, computers, at least 3 televisions all color. We had no pool, one b/w tv in the livingroom for years. I had my bike and train sets, car racing set actually quite a lot of toys I suppose but nothing like the amount even my now 30 yo nieces and nephews had growing up.
Most of the good stuff I had,, aka the train sets and car racing stuff I got for Christmases and added on to them with Christmas and birthday money/gifts. Christmas was always the biggest time to score though.
It is interesting that the trip to see the "Christmas Displays" was as much fun and excitement as opening your presents on christmas morning...and you had to fight your way to the front of the window because it was always that popular...
12 yrs ago I lived next to a family with two young girls of 5 & 3, I stepped out early on Christmas Morning to walk the schnitzels Ella & Cal, it had snowed heavily and our dogs always walked ahead of me, so the footprints where of small dogs and me with big boots behind!! when I came back I walked around the avenue & up their drive & to their door, everyone was still asleep, all the kids in the close thought it was the footprints of "Santa & his Reindeer" deliverying their extra presants, they waited every year for this to happen when it snowed....simple pleasures
