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Holiday Window Displays Light Up New York City

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Image of a Holiday Window display at Saks Fifth Avenue, by Jemal Countess/Getty Images

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, particularly if you take a walk down Fifth Avenue.

The season’s excess takes center stage with department stores and luxury retailers trying to one-up each other not just with holiday sales, but with opulently festive window displays down the avenue. A combination of art, design, sound engineering, animation, fashion, marketing and whimsy have helped make the displays an integral part of the holiday season since the first stores began decorating in the 1800s. Now, the process takes months of planning, with designers starting to envision next year’s windows before the current year’s are unwrapped.

Roya Sullivan, Macy’s national window director, said the store -- which began the window display fad over 100 years ago -- began preparations for this year's display, "Santa's journey to the Stars," over a year ago. The display, which required over 200 people to put together, depicts a young boy wondering about Santa's journey on Christmas Eve -- does he visit the moon? Does his sleigh come from a different galaxy? After Santa picks the boy up, each window takes the viewer on a new journey to a different planet, culminating with a visit to Macy's Herald Square store at the end of the store's annual Thanksgiving Parade.

It certainly isn't a tale a viewer could confuse with that of Tiny Tim or George Bailey. And that's the point: innovation and creativity are integral to the window displays created by Macy's and other department stores each year. "Even when we do something sentimental and nostalgic, we think a lot about the technology involved," said Sullvan. "If the idea has been done before we definitely think about reinventing the wheel."

And while Sullivan wouldn't divulge the cost of putting together such a spectacular show (other outlets have estimated the yearly celebrations cost in the millions), she said Macy's is happy to create the displays year after year.

"It’s our gift to the city, we’re very proud of it," she said. "We’ve seen tons and tons of people come by and photograph and admire them. It’s a wonderful feeling to give that back to the city and celebrate such a wonderful time of year."

From Macy's space journey on 34th Street to Barneys New York's "Bazdazzled" spectacular up on 61st Street, below is a guided tour through the displays at New York City's major stores this holiday season.

Starting at Macy’s Herald Square on West 34th Street and Broadway, you will enjoy scenes of Santa travelling through space. Ice giants are on on display on Uranus and Neptune, while Mars boasts candy-cane lanes.

Lord & Taylor, the next stop on this festive circuit at East 38th Street and Fifth Avenue, went with an “enchanted mansion" theme, telling tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago. Rooms including “The Heritage Gallery” and the “Hall of Wisdom” allow customers to “embark on a state-of-the-art journey through the imagination.” The windows were created by a team of 50 people in a workshop underneath the Fifth Avenue sidewalk and were then moved onto street level using hydraulic lifts.

A quick jaunt up to East 49th street brings the merriment to Saks Fifth Avenue, where viewers are treated to “An Enchanted Experience” boasting colorful scenes integrating LED lights, strobes, up-lights, video projections and music. The display, which showcases scenes from classic fairy tales with iconic New York locations as the backdrop, is a nod to the store’s birth in “the roaring ‘20s when shopping was glamorous and everything felt possible.” Art Deco makes a return in the form of a light show on the building’s façade – incorporating 71,000 lights -- which will continue to run every day and night through the new year.

The flagship  Tiffany & Co . shop at 57th and Fifth Avenue also transports guests to an earlier time, with scenes reminiscent of New York in the 1950s and '60s. The graphic illustrations boast a color palette of blues and lavender, with occasional pops of color, accented with jewels and the iconic Tiffany Blue Box incorporated into each scene. A light show overlays the store’s façade, inspired by the fireworks display created for the Tiffany Diamond at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The show illuminates the building every 15 minutes, from 4:00 pm until midnight every day until January 5.

Just one street north, Bergdorf Goodman honored the Arts in its display this year, with windows celebrating literature, architecture, theater, painting, dance, sculpture and film. Bergdorf Goodman’s team of display artists spent 11 months planning and producing the spectacle, which will be on view through January 4, 2015.

The festivities then move over a few avenues to Bloomingdale’s, which kicked off the Holiday Window Shopping season with windows designed around seven different vignettes inspired by lyrics from classic holiday songs, like "Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!," and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Although it’s all the way over on Third Avenue and East 59th Street, you won’t want to miss it.

And finally, if you’re really feeling the Holiday spirit, don’t miss the “Bazdazzled” display at Barneys New York on Madison Avenue and 61st Street. Director Baz Luhrmann and wife Catherine Martin, along with the help of more than 100 others, put the designs together based around the motto, ”A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.” Unlike the other stores on this list, Barneys will feature both mechanical productions and live performances until the new year. A schedule of performances can be found online.

Follow me on Twitter : @AliciaAdamczyk