Stocking Up For Christmas

This Christmas, we had the pleasant arrival of a couple of really ginger little men who stole the spotlight in our storefront to compete in the 2012 Downtown BIA Christmas Window Display Competition.

Literally.  They stole it, along with a bunch of other things from Santa's warehouse.

Christmas is such a cheery time full of vibrant characters.  Take the elves for example, they must the be the most nimble and hardest working little workers around, just imagine how hard it must be to manufacture Nintendo games and iPhones by hand all year round in a chilly old workshop at the North Pole.  Or those jolly snowmen, who put on a smile no matter how cold it is and they hold their ground to bitter end, through the worst of sunburns.  Think of all the hard workers that bring the Christmas spectacle together every year.  Reindeer that can fly and haul millions of presents around the world.  The Abominable Snowman who runs a top notch security perimeter for Santa's village, who to this day has still prevented anyone from penetrating the secret compound.  Even Santa himself, that fat old man runs a scheduled delivery still unsurpassed by the best and most modern in the courier industry today.  But then there's one other group... those sweet little gingerbread men.  The ones that jump from your baking sheet as you pull them from your oven and make a break for the door.  Nobody really seems to know what greater Christmas purpose these guys serve.  In fact, from time to time their devilish acts seem to be against Christmas belief.  Some are beginning to wonder if it was the gingerbread men who put the 'x' in X-mas, creating a new generation of greedy kids who aren't even illegible for coal delivery to pressure their parents to shop for their gifts.  What a crazy concept!  Ya I know it sounds far fetched, but after what we've seen around here this year, I wouldn't be surprised if those gingerbread men weren't behind it all.

Well, in case you were wondering, I have the results for the display competition right here.

This year's 1st place prize was given to Downtown Dental for their retro-festive.ca lamp display.

The second place went to Laurenzo’s School of Hair Design arrangement of Christmas stockings. 

And in 3rd place, slightly saddened by our hard efforts to win peoples' Christmas spirit, our ginger little gallery sparkled with hope.

 

As for the other contenders, in alphabetical order, these were the remaining displays.

Allegra

Crazy Bill's

Downtown Bike Hounds

 E. Fusaro's

 Leather's

 Nathaniel Hughson Gallery

Sonic Unyon

TriOS College

YMCA Careerworx

Also, HECFI was listed as a contender but we couldn't find any of their Christmas decorations or display windows to photograph.

Although BIA polls are closed we still encourage our viewers to let us know their favourites.  Send us an email and tell us what you think.  If you have ideas for next year send em this way too!

Partially cooked gingerbread men on the loose.

Grand Opening

Friday, September 14, 2012

6:45pm - Last minute cleaning has pushed itself late into the early hours of the crawl.  Tensions ran high and the race to hang all of the art as soon as possible became a struggle as crawlers began peering through the slits of the paper covering the windows with an odd tug at the door handle.

7:30pm - Unveiling began and in flowed the curious people.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Day 2 proved itself the most popular among the crawlers, there was probably 5 times more people than the Friday.

The gallery swelled with large crowds of people washing in and out like waves well into the late evening.  Loud bass, balloons popping and the sounds of dozens of simultaneous conversations became the ambient tone over the weekend.  Like music to our ears, the combination of relaxing from the week's hard work and finally opening to the warm air and droves of excited people was the utmost rewarding feeling.

An F for getting things done on time but a A for being open for the Super Crawl.  We apologize to anyone who may been on the other side of the glass during those early hours that never had the chance to visit.