Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

This year, Macy's windows in Center City Philadelphia, right by City Hall, are particularly creative, so I took a camera with me this morning when The Gryphon and I went to breakfast and snapped some pics.

I didn't think to take close-up pictures of the scrolls under each vignette, which no doubt tell something about what they're meant to be. So humor me as I make up my own interpretations.

All the windows are covered mostly in red paper, with a vignette made to look like the interior of an old-fashioned Christmas ornament. The first shows Santa and Mrs. Claus in a room decorated for the holiday, with an elf peeking from behind the Christmas tree. You might want to click on each of these to see a larger version.

The next shows Santa flying over some Philadelphia landmarks, such as the LOVE sculpture by Robert Indiana, and the Liberty Bell. The city must have been hit by a devastating amount of snow, as it's managed to turn the sculpture topsy-turvy and to crush the protective building around the Liberty Bell.

This window is definitely not to scale, unless the Liberty Bell is very close and Santa very far away, as the LOVE sculpture is about three times as big as the Liberty Bell. Also, there's a large Santa Claus in the background for some reason. Maybe this is Santa's nightmare.

The perspective in the third window is a bit better, as Santa flies by some homes in the suburbs. Looks like the prosperous Main Line area to me.

I think my favorite window is the one that shows a robot in a Space Age style starship encountering Santa and his reindeer. Santa is flying through some strange sort of landscape that looks like it's either undersea or in space, or both. Colorful peacock-style creatures watch the sleigh, probably trying to decide if reindeer are tasty.

Here's a detail from that window, showing the robot gazing up at the reindeer. I apologize for the poor quality of these photos, as the reflections from the building across the way sometimes make it difficult to make out details.

The only window that features movement does not contain Santa. It's a fanciful scene showing wind and waves, and a rapidly spinning snowflake.

My second favorite window is the last one, where Santa sits at a device that tallies up the naughty versus nice scores for everyone. it bothers me a little that you can't see Santa's face in this one. Is Santa hiding some dark secrets? Smoking a cigar? Who knows?

In this detail, you can see The Gryphon in the reflection. Santa almost appears to be looking at him, evaluating his Niceness Factor. I believe that Santa would agree with me that he's very nice!

Copyright 2007 by Alyce Wilson

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