This year's Christmas window displays vary between nostalgic traditional seasonal themes and colours, and the more modern, showcasing festive themes from around the globe

FOR KEVIN PENDER, head of creative design at Arnotts, Christmas 2008 began last February, just weeks after the bunting and oversized crackers had been taken down. He heads a team of nine, whose job it is to ensure the Christmas windows (the largest and oldest department-store display windows in the country) carry on a tradition that first began at the store in 1843. With 22 windows to decorate, the Arnotts Christmas display is a huge logistical operation and takes up to seven days to install.

This year's Christmas windows, launched on November 6th, include four villages, snow slopes, markets and a zoo, all replicated in forensic detail. More than 400 individual pieces make up the display, while an enchanted forest alone contains more than 100 trees. Some 3,000 lights illuminate the facade of the Henry Street store. It's a far cry from the days when a coloured light bulb, a crib and little else were the sum total of retail Christmas cheer for passers-by.

"We have one of the largest stretches of window displays in Europe, and the Christmas display is the showcase event of the year," says Pender. "This year we used . . . 12 Irish companies to bring it to fruition, and given the tradition here I always think the windows are more for the community than the store."

This year the team decided to reintroduce animation into the Christmas design, which was a popular feature of the Switzers windows on Grafton Street in the pre-Celtic Tiger years. Animation, in window design speak, basically means moving parts, and such designs haven't been seen on Dublin's high streets for several years. "At the moment, the way the economy is, people are harking back," says Kevin, "and this year's design has got a huge response. People like a bit of nostalgia. I like to look on the Christmas window as a bit of street art." Arnotts say the public reaction to the windows is the biggest in a decade, with members of the public writing to the store and dropping by to express their delight.

BROWN THOMAS IN Cork has a Christmas display depicting a winter wonderland, taking inspiration from traditional Christmas carols in a series of opulent interior and exterior scenes incorporating Venetian glass, handwritten letters and vintage books, icy glass, owls, a woodland scene and an antique sleigh. Snow drifts by in a wonderland effect throughout each window setting.

'World of Christmas at Brown Thomas' is the theme of its Grafton Street store. The windows have a global theme. One contains French cakes symbolising le Réveillon, the supper held after midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

In the Indian window, banana and mango trees, cascades of brightly coloured baubles and a wooden, hand-carved, jewelled elephant are represented, all under the themes of unity and love.

The Russian-inspired window features Babushka, a traditional Christmas figure, while in the Eastern window, flowers and chains of lights are hung from the ceiling.

The team behind the window, which included John Redmond, Róisín O'Riordan and Ruth Bannon, spent time researching the elements of the world's different Christmases to ensure the displays portrayed accurate information in the storytelling and creativity.

Clerys say the concept for their windows was born early in the summer and carries on a long Christmas tradition at the store.

"Over the years, the themes have changed dramatically, from dreamcatcher to Disney and to the opulent Christmas bauble theme you see today. The display and merchandising team designed and implemented the concept, bringing it through the various stages."

This year's concept includes a black vinyl with huge vintage-style Christmas baubles covering each window, with the message "Look inside for the perfect gift". Colours used range from deep purple to lavish magenta, with each window telling a different story.

CHRISTMAS WINDOW displays are not confined to the cities. Shaws Department Stores on Main Street in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, has a Christmas display based on traditional festive themes.

Included is a fireplace with large Christmas stockings, several Christmas trees, a group of life-size carol singers and a Nativity scene. The only animation in the window comes by way of three LCD screens showing the film Finding Nemo. In the background, a large company poster proudly boasts "We have a gift for making Christmas special", says store manager John Nee.

Much of the work was done with the help of in-store window designer Helen O'Mahony, and the team began preparing in early September.

"The themes in the window don't change that much from year to year," says Nee. "The colours we use are predominantly red and gold, while the storylines we aim for are very much traditional Christmas themes. Of course, as well as it being a Christmas story, we are also using the display to sell our products."

At times over the past decade, says Nee, the fashion was to take a more alternative artistic line with the displays, incorporating colours such as purples and orange, and often using minimalist lighting. This year, though, it's back to basics. "The reaction from the public so far has been positive. We've been decorating the window here since 1976 so it's very much a fixture of the local community now," he says.

FOR 20 YEARS, former broadcaster and writer Joe Moore painted window displays in his hometown of Athlone. He mostly stuck to Santa and religious scenes, with the odd local politician painted into Santa's sack for good measure. Nowadays, the design and style of shop windows has changed dramatically, he says. Subtlety has been lost.

There was a time when most of the shops in the Connaught Street area competed for the most original window displays, according to Moore. "One shop went to a lot of trouble, even covering the solitary 25 watt bulb in crepe paper, which shone on Connaught Street's version of the Nativity. This consisted of a smoke-stained Mary and Joseph, a headless shepherd and an earless donkey, leaning against a background which advertised 'Wild Woodbine Cigarettes'."

In another shop, where a large pig's head was on display throughout the year, the Christmas season was also marked: "On Christmas week, to coincide with the great religious feast, a couple of sprigs of holly were wedged up the pig's snout," says Moore.

Creative designers take note.

Down memory pane: the windows of Christmas past

Bertie Ahern

"Clerys was always our first port of call. They had some terrific displays. Then we'd go up Grafton Street and look at the old Switzers window, which was probably one of the best in town. My memories of those Sunday afternoons were queues at each of the 10 windows, and this at a time when Grafton Street had two-way traffic. Everyone went to see the windows, regardless of whether you could afford to go into the shop or not.

"One of the things I wonder is, with all the Christmas advertisements on TV and radio, would it not be better if more money went into shop displays. Many town centres are fairly meaningless and you'd be lucky if you get a Christmas tree. People are taking massive profits out of the Christmas season, and I'm thinking particularly of international retailers. So I think Christmas is about more than just profiteering. I'd like to see a bit more put back by way of upping the Christmas spirit."

Rosemary Scallon (Dana)

"Austins in Derry is a building with a large, curved glass window dating from the 1800s. It's in the middle of the town and has a war memorial nearby. My earliest memory of a Christmas window, though, is a tiny little house that had a front room converted into a paper shop. It was opposite a very old church in Derry. When I was about six years old I remember looking in at the Christmas window of this tiny shop. In the window there was a baby doll with a long blue dress. I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful. There were also all sorts of other toys in the window, but I got the baby doll for Christmas. I couldn't understand how Santa Claus figured out that I wanted that one.

"We've been in London and Dublin during Christmas with our kids and looked at many shop windows, and I've seen many beautiful ones over the years. For me, though, that window I saw as a six-year-old is still very special."

John Creedon

"I was one of 12 kids and we grew up in a dairy called Inchigeelagh Dairy, which was basically a late-night corner shop in the north inner city in Cork. I remember my parents took pride in the Christmas window and my dad built a crib in about 1946, which had an infant and a light bulb and all the little figures. As the years went by, though, the figures would disappear and have to be replaced, so that figures from different sets made their way into the crib. I came back from Dublin one year and remember saying to my dad that 'St Joseph is bigger than the donkey!'

"Another Christmas we had a dog called Juno, who was a tiny fellow and often asleep due to ill health. My sister got pipe cleaners and made antlers out of them with a rubber band and tied them to the dog. My dad then put a sign outside the shop window advertising "Connie's Moving Crib". In fact, the dog was about the same height as St Joseph in the end."