Free Lunch: lost tradition of Christmas windows back in 'Grand' style

SALT LAKE CITY — Six thousand pounds of candy, 15 employees and 200 glue guns. That’s what it took to create a little holiday cheer on Main Street when ZCMI designed its candy windows every year.

When the sweet tradition disappeared in 2007, along with the department store, downtown window-shopping in December became as enticing as a display of bald mannequins. What could compete with space aliens made of marzipan, citrus-sugar fish and a purple moose playing a chocolate violin?

In today’s world of “one click” shopping, the art of window-dressing isn’t what it used to be. But there is hope for those who fondly recall shopping with their eyes during the holidays, downtown.

Last week, a dozen designers — including a few who once decorated those storied ZCMI windows — put the finishing touches on 17 Christmas storybook windows at the Grand America Hotel. It’s the second yuletide window project since hotel president Bruce Fery decided last year that Main Street needed a touch of “34th Street,” with ZCMI gone and the old mall demolished to make way for a new one.

Although the displays don’t contain anything made of bubble gum, licorice or jelly beans, “holiday windows speak to the kid in all of us,” says Fery. “Every child should have memories of coming downtown to see what’s new in the Christmas windows. But that ritual has been missing in our town for a while.”

Eager to share his vision for a new holiday tradition, Fery recently joined me for a Free Lunch chat in Grand America’s tea room with Brent Watts, the creative director he hired to bring back the magic.

A Utah native, Watts recalls bundling up for the annual trek downtown with his parents on the day after Thanksgiving each year to see the tree-lighting ceremony and Christmas window-unveiling at ZCMI.

“We’d stand out there in frigid weather in anticipation, waiting for somebody to flip the switch,” he recalls. “It was always a highlight of my holiday season.”

Fery, on the other hand, grew up in western Idaho, where he was lucky to see a few plastic reindeer in the front window of his local five-and-dime every December.

Fortunately, his father took him on frequent business trips to New York City, where he delighted in the elaborate holiday department store windows of Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman and Macy’s, where there was often a new animated scene from "Miracle on 34th Street."