Christmas is always a magical time of year for those who love the Christmas spirit. I didn’t have to search far for the magic in Paris…
The place where you can find all the children with big round eyes is in front of the display windows (“vitrines”) of the Grands Magasins, Galleries Lafayette and Printemps. Every year they have celebrity designers invent a concept for their Christmas windows, or “vitrines de noël”. They always have some mechanical fantasy that moves puppets and objects to create for a little show. In front of these large and wonderful mechanical scenes there is a special, platform that runs the length of the window, wide enough for two children to pass eachother, and guarded by a railing so that only children may get on it. It brings them up above the knees of the pushy camera bearing adults so that they can see and dream…

The adults can enjoy other smaller windows that are more for displaying the designers’ clothing and accessories than the Holiday scenes, but in a festive manner with all the trimmings that can only be conceptualized by the reative minds of the designers.
And they do seem a bit more geered towards adults this year, or is that just the general French attitude towards “allure”? Whatever it is, it certainly catches the eye!

The other theme that Printemps touched upon was luxury and fine things…Although stunning, I found this less magical in a year of financial crisis and high unemployment rates…

These windows are by DIOR and CHANEL :

But most of the magic that I found was within the company of loved ones. Whether it was baking cookies for them, decorating trees with them or just spending these precious moments together, moments that seem so fleeting as every year sails on by and by…the magic of Christmas for me can’t be found in a gift box or display window, the magic of Christmas is the warmpth that comes from loved ones.