Today, doormen accept our Amazon packages, gift cards materialize in our email, and we track our Temu and TikTok Shop orders on our phones. But not even that long ago, New York was a department-store town. Holiday shopping meant a trip uptown to Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, or Bergdorf Goodman, where baskets on the seventh floor brimmed with glass Christmas ornaments and you could — if you paid enough — walk out with a fully decorated tree. Best & Co., Bonwit Teller, and Henri Bendel (those brown-and-white striped bags!) all had their own niches, clientele, devotees. Downtown, there was Barneys, first downscale and later on very, very upscale, with its celebrity-themed holiday windows and mannequin renditions of everyone from Madonna to Margaret Thatcher. (If you couldn’t afford Barneys, you could walk a couple of blocks to Mays or S. Klein, both on Union Square, and sift through the schlock to maybe find something giftable.)
In This Issue
Holiday Gift Issue 2024
On Fulton Street in Brooklyn, there was A&S, where shoppers wore their finest hats and gloves to browse. On and around 34th Street, of course, there were Macy’s and Saks and B. Altman and Gimbels. (Lord & Taylor was a few blocks up by West 38th.) One could knock out a gift for everyone on their list in just a few stops because the big stores carried a much larger variety of stuff than today: books, LPs, camera gear, pianos. Macy’s and Gimbels even had counters with collectible coins and postage stamps.
A few of these department stores still exist. Most are gone, their names existing solely in swashy script on a hatbox in an elderly relative’s attic. (At least there’s Miracle on 34th Street, in which Gimbels will forever battle Macy’s for supremacy.) Here, we look back at holiday shopping when the biggest crowds were made up of shoppers in stores rather than UPS drivers trying to park. — Hilary Reid
When Joan Rivers Needed to Get a Gift for Brooke Astor at Bergdorf Goodman
Nicholas Manville, vice-president of the decorative-home department at Bergdorf Goodman, 1999–2012
I was the buyer for the whole seventh floor. We had 12 different trees, and most of our ornaments were exclusive at the time, so we had about 50 ornaments per tree. Most of them were hand-painted, so — I don’t know the math, but there were thousands of ornaments over the years that we had to develop. There were a few tree themes we always did. We had code names for them — like “Religious Santa.” And the rest were kind of according to what was going on in the world. We would do things like “Kensington Palace” when William and Kate got engaged, “Hollywood” would reference classic and new film characters, and the “New York” tree happened every year and would shift with the times. Usually, there was an Empire State Building, a yellow taxi, and an apple, but around the recession, it was a bit crime-and-vice oriented — liquor bottles, cigarettes, wads of cash, gambling chips, a cockroach. The dirtier it got, the better it sold. You have a certain ten-week window to make a ton of money, and it was very stressful. It would take about a week to set it all up and then after that you’re just constantly refilling things because every second counts.
I remember once this Brazilian woman came in, and she was holding a dog, and she said, “I want this tree — the actual tree.” One of the trees in the department, fully decorated. I was like, “Okay, what does that mean? How many ornaments do you want?” But she’s like, “No, I want it just like this. I want you to ship it to me that way.” I explained that we can’t really do that; we’d have to take the ornaments off the tree to ship it. So she left and came back a few hours later with a man holding her coat and her purse and walking behind her a respectable number of feet. She said, “We have it figured out. If you can have the tree downstairs at five, we’ll just take it in our private plane that way.” So literally we went around the tree with a scanning gun and just tallied everything. I have no idea who she was — just a fabulous Brazilian. And she paid cash. This other time, Joan Rivers came in and was like, “I’ve got to get a gift for Brooke Astor. But she doesn’t need anything.” She ended up finding this little pillbox that said YOU COULD NEVER BE TOO RICH OR TOO THIN. It was very tiny, so Joan goes, “Okay, I want you to wrap it in a very small box, then I want you to put that small box in the biggest possible box and ship it to Brooke.” She wanted to mess with her. Carrie Fisher came in once. She had a Broadway show at the time, and she came in covered in glitter — I guess that’s how the show ended. She was in a rush and said, “I need 20 gifts for a bunch of people I don’t like.” We had to figure that out quickly. She bought them chocolate and Gloria von Thurn und Taxis shortbread cookies. Now they know!
During the holidays, it really was like a three-ring circus on our floor. You’d always have entertainment going, like you’d have CZ Guest and Wonder Woman there doing a book signing and Gloria von Thurn und Taxis walking around the floor with an apron on and a tray of butter cookies. There was just weird, fun stuff going on. Now, I don’t think retail has entertainment anymore. It’s a shame that magic has gone. There’s just a warm feeling you get when you watch someone wrapping a gift for you. When someone’s actually tying the bow, there’s something — it’s a feeling. Your head kind of tingles a little bit.
When Going to A&S During the Holidays Was Like Going to Church on Sunday
Kathleen Emperor Sayers, regular A&S shopper, 1950–69
My dad worked in the china department at Abraham & Straus in the mid-’40s. I remember him bringing home chipped china that he’d get for free; the Franciscan china with the apple was so beautiful. I started going to A&S with my parents when I was about 5 or 6, and during the holidays, we’d dress up like we were going to church on Sundays. I remember wearing a coat that was an exact replica of one that actress Margaret O’Brien had — navy blue and double breasted — and I had the matching hat and patent-leather shoes. The first thing I remember was walking through the front doors — it was like a palace. There was always hanging greenery and large beautiful bows with big Christmas balls attached to them. Everything sparkled. Oh, and, of course, there were lights, which were entwined in the wreaths. And the next beautiful thing you’d see would be the elevators. They were all gold, and the men who operated them were dressed in these beautiful uniforms. I remember getting in the elevator and going to the eighth floor, and the doors would open, and as far as I can remember, it was totally toys. All you could see were toys, toys, and toys, like a fabulous toy land. My parents would never let me pick out my own gift because everything came from Santa, but my mom would walk around with me to get an idea of what I liked. I remember there was one beautiful doll that caught my eye. She was made in Italy and had kind of large lips, like what people look like now when they get filler, and she was dressed in a beautiful pink organza dress. She was the doll I wanted, but I didn’t get her. She was $50, which was a huge amount of money in the late ’40s. Years later, as an adult in the late ’80s, I was up in Schenectady at a flea market. I saw the doll there. I was so ecstatic that I had finally got her.
When FAO Schwarz Had the Exclusive on Cabbage Patch Kids
Gale Jarvis, executive vice-president of FAO Schwarz, 1986–96
It was just unbelievable the way people wanted that doll. They always wanted one that looked like their child, their niece, their nephew, or they wanted the most unusual, like a redhead. Customers got emotional over them. You buy a doll, and you’re thinking about the daughter you have, the daughter you didn’t have. And then you take it a step further and make it so that you adopt them on top of all that! We couldn’t store them in a public place, even the stockroom, because somebody would see one and say, “Oh, that’s the one I wanted.” So I had all the dolls in my office — I had no room to sit. We did everything just to control the mobs.
When Everyone Had Something to Say About the Windows at Bergdorf Goodman
David Hoey, Bergdorf Goodman senior director of visual presentation, employee since 1996
We deliberately overstuff our windows. One of our gimmicks is to put in more than might be necessary because we want to really dazzle and we want people to return. It’s about abundance. We would go out onto the sidewalk and get instant critiques by listening to pedestrians, just eavesdropping. I heard a woman with a little girl, and she said, “Now look at this window. It’s real, real busy.” And the little girl said, “I think it’s too busy.” And the mother said, “Well, honey, they just got started and didn’t know when to stop.”
When Eggs Cooked in the Window at Bloomingdale’s
Candy Pratts Price, Bloomingdale’s display director, 1975–85
A new Cuisinart was coming out in the 1970s, so we took the 60th Street and Lexington Avenue window and made that a modern kitchen with a mannequin. I insisted that there be a broken egg on the floor because the mannequin was using the new Cuisinart. Now, the problem there was that the lights on the window were so warm inside that the egg, of course, was cooking. We realized, Oh God, so we had somebody go every day, three times a day, to change the egg on the floor.
When a Stuffed Cat Wore a Crown of Schlumberger Diamonds at Tiffany
Robert Rufino, vice-president of creative services and visual merchandising for Tiffany & Co., 1996–2008
I spent 12 Christmases at Tiffany’s. The first week I got there, someone told me they had put all of legendary designer Gene Moore’s windows on a shelf in my office. I said, “I want you to get a box and take them to storage.” And they all looked at me like, What? I said, “I don’t wanna be influenced by what Gene Moore did. We need to turn the page. I have to do my thing.” And my approach when I created a window, it was like I was looking through a camera lens, creating the most beautiful still life and telling a story. My first Christmas, I took inspiration from the Christmas cards Andy Warhol designed for Tiffany’s. I picked five different cards and made these larger-than-life papier-mâché displays with monkeys, reindeer, an over-the-top cake, a sled — and one was a cat sitting on a pillow wearing a crown of jewels that we made out of Schlumberger diamond brooches. All of them were made in 3-D papier-mâché and gilded in gold. Another year, I was either in London or Paris when I saw paper cutouts for children that were called toy theater and I thought, How could we do this and take it to the next level? I ended up creating a little stage set, and everything was encrusted with colored sugar and candy. They were very intricate. We worked with someone who made the cutouts, then a baker did all the icing and frosting on top, which they coated in lacquer. There were all different scenes. One was a garden, one was a swan, one depicted a bridge covered in icicles. It was magical. It was like looking into a storybook.
When a Shopper Crashed Through the Holiday Windows at Saks
Paula Coccimiglio, director of Saks Fifth Avenue, New York, 2000–7
It was the day of the unveiling, and it was probably eight o’clock in the morning. We had canvas covering all six windows until they were unveiled. I was in a meeting, and my window director came running in and said, “Someone was leaning on the windows.” They were trying to take a picture of themselves — even though there was canvas, it was still painted and pretty. They lost their balance, tried to catch themselves, and fell back on the window. They put their foot through the glass and busted it. All the glass was inside the window. It was hours before the event. It was the chaos of all chaos. We had to get a glass company. We had to clean out the window. We had to make sure the animation wasn’t damaged. But we made sure the guy was fine. We finally got the glass out of the window, and we were able to unveil it. After that, we always had somebody stand there to make sure nobody leaned on our windows.
When We Wore Wigs to Cheer Each Other Up at
Simon Doonan, Barneys window dresser, 1986–2010
The people working on the Barneys windows were people I’d met at the Pyramid Club and at Area and at Susanne Bartsch’s various clubs. So they were all the fun, creative outsiders who might’ve been to art school, and they picked up some shekels doing display work, helping to prepare these windows. The window dressers were invariably very interesting people who would contribute ideas. If it was a rainy day and we wanted to cheer each other up, we’d all put on display wigs while we worked. And all this fun and fabulosity was happening against the backdrop of AIDS. I find that very touching, very life affirming, that one of the most creative periods in my life was happening against this terrible backdrop of suffering. And many of the people whom I’m thinking of died of AIDS. They were sick, and you knew who was sick and who wasn’t. So that was going on concurrently with this explosive, creative, improvisational, funky fun.
We did this incredible event in 1986, marking the opening of the big women’s store downtown that Peter Marino and Andrée Putman collaborated on. We had a hundred designers decorate denim jackets — and this was for an AIDS charity. It was for the St. Vincent’s Hospital, which was where everybody was dying just down the street. Everyone participated; they just had to be asked. Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Every designer imaginable from Valentino to Alaïa to Karl Lagerfeld. Jean Paul Gaultier.
Madonna came to this event and arrived with Martin Burgoyne, who was her roommate, and he was obviously very, very sick. She spent the whole evening holding his hand with her arm around him. There was no “I can’t go near you.” Many people back then, in 1986, were still very wary of AIDS — they didn’t understand it. So Madonna, she held his hand, had her arm around him, spent the whole evening with him, and, of course, we window dressers were like, She is everything. It was this incredibly moving, touching thing — this powerful thing — that she did. And so we thought, We’ve got to get Madonna in the windows. So we did a series of Madonna windows.
The first one was Blonde Ambition, and it was her with the ponytail and the Jean Paul Gaultier pointy bra and corset. Madonna loaned us the outfit. I went to pick it up from Madonna’s brother, who had custody of it, and when I got it to the display studio, basically there was a riot to see it. This is Madonna’s actual Gaultier pointy-bra outfit. There were hairs stuck in it from the ponytail wig that Orlando Pita made for her. We’d had him make a big sculpture in the window of her ponytail for the Blond Ambition tour, so we looked and there were these foot-long hairs that were clearly from the wig. There was this stampede, and everybody grabbed a hair. I don’t know what everybody did with them. But, you know, she’s performing in this thing and a little wig hair gets trapped in the lacing. So there was a riot over that.
Then there was the second Madonna window we did. We put some popcorn next to her. She’s lying on a chaise longue in front of this row of hair dryers. Madonna’s dipping into the organic popcorn. And these mice found their way into the window. Anytime you put anything edible in a window, look out. It’s New York City — hello?! People said, “You should get rid of those mice in the window.” It was a tiny bit stressful thinking, Oh God, we have vermin in the window. But I thought, It’s kinetic; it’s moving. Not many things move in a window. People love it. They’re going to talk forever about the time they saw a mouse in the Barneys window.
When Ornaments Went on Sale for a Penny Apiece at Lord & Taylor
Mary Savage, finance-department employeeat Lord & Taylor, 1976–2006
In the ’70s, Lord & Taylor would have an after-Christmas sale and December 26 was the big day. There was a breezeway between the revolving doors and the inner doors of the Fifth Avenue entrance, and ladies would serve tea and coffee to the customers waiting in the lobby. The store would open at, say, ten o’clock, and there would be people rushing in to get to the eighth or ninth floor where the Christmas shop was. Then in January, they would have the “roof sale” for employees only on the 11th floor. They would sell everything. You could get a $100 scarf for a dollar, and they had rooms full of ornaments and trinkets and Christmas items that were marked down to 25 cents or 50 cents. And we would still get our employee discount on top of that! I have three crystal-globe ornaments that are cobalt blue and made in Poland, and I paid a penny apiece for them. I actually had a whole closet in my condo that was just Christmas things from Lord & Taylor. I still put up all the ornaments every year.
When Liza Minnelli Had Henri Bendel All to Herself
Michael John Palladino, director of client and studio services at Henri Bendel, 1992–2009
I did all the celebrity gifting. Around the holidays, we sent gifts to celebrities and clients who shopped with us as a way of thanking them. I always had my hand on the pulse of what was going on and what I thought could be interesting. In the ’90s, I had to give a gift to Damon Dash, and I knew exactly what I was going to do. We had just had a trunk show with an artist who created things from candy, so I contacted them and said, “Would you be able to make me a Hummer?” They made a Hummer out of gold candy wrappers, and I had it shipped to him. It was at least three by four feet. It was big. You couldn’t get in it, but you knew it was a Hummer.
One time during the holidays, Liza Minnelli came in to shop and was struggling to get anything done. She was getting hounded, so I came up to her and I said, “What if you and I met early one morning before the store opens?” And she said, “Oh my God, would you do that for me?” I said, “Yes, of course.” So she came two days later; we met at 8:30 in the morning, and it was her playground. She was in the accessories world, which, for the holidays, is the safest place to be. We featured artists who had one-of-a-kind — upcycled, if you will — legit vintage pieces that were transformed into something else. I’m sure I showed her that. I think she might have also picked up earrings or a scarf; we had some beautiful scarves that were hand-painted. Certainly, people would think, with a celebrity, Why would I show them something for $60 — why don’t I show them something for $6,000? But I was the other way around. I didn’t treat them as a credit-card machine. They weren’t there for me to just take, take, take.
When There Was a ‘Special Santa’ at Macy’s …
Lee Best, Santa since 2018
I grew up in New York City in the ’70s, and my mom had no problem finding an African American Santa. I did all the Macy’s as a kid, and it was no problem. In hindsight, maybe in the ’70s we were kind of coming off the ’60s and it was a very activist culture. Maybe that kind of waned in the ’80s. I don’t know. My wife’s experience was that she would go to Macy’s with my children and they had this thing where you could request what they would call the “Special Santa.” She would request the Special Santa, and the Special Santa would be a guy who seemed almost as if he was in blackface. Almost like a bad tanning situation. They wouldn’t have a real Black guy; they would just, I guess, have someone darker or who they kind of made darker with makeup or whatever.
So two things converged at once: I started doing No-Shave November and working in schools as a counselor, and children are brutally honest. Whenever I did No-Shave November, I always got the “Hey, okay, Santa.” At the same time, my own children were becoming toddlers. My wife was looking around for an African American Santa, and she couldn’t find anyone anywhere. So I said, “I’ll do it myself.” The first actual Santa job that I had was at my children’s elementary school. I did the pictures with Santa, and from there, I began to research and saw how people actually make a career of it. I became a member of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas. A union member.
I have a million stories. I remember I was at an event and there was a parent who was volunteering as the photographer. It just so happened that she was African American. She saw me, and she said, “Oh! I have to take a picture with you because no one is going to believe it.” So she jumped in the picture, with no children, and she said, “Oh, you’re so needed and so necessary.” Stories like that inspire me to keep going.
And a Mom Just Needed a Hug at Bloomingdale’s
Gary Dreifus, Santa for nearly 50 years
My granddaughter loves the idea that her grandpa is Santa. We don’t celebrate Christmas, so it wasn’t a big deal for me to work on Christmas. That’s also the weird thing. Why is there a Jewish Santa? I mean, who else is going to work on Christmas Eve? We do give out dreidels. My viewpoint on Santa — and this goes against some Santas — is that it’s not a religious experience. It’s a testimony to the time of year when we accept everybody. We show love to everybody. We give gifts. Kids come and tell me gifts that they want. But some people do still view it as a religious experience, and that’s fine. That’s up to them.
I love when you ask the kids, “What do you want for Christmas?” And they say, “I want my family to be closer together.” That makes it all worthwhile. There have been kids who’ve asked me, “Can you bring my parents together?” They’re getting a divorce, and you sort of know how to handle it. I was working at Bloomingdale’s a few years ago, and these kids were talking, and all of a sudden the mother, who was standing there, burst into tears. The father — her husband — had just passed away. What you do is you get off your butt and you hug the mother. It was a few minutes of just holding her and saying, “It’ll all be fine. It’ll be good.”
The kids ask for more expensive toys. You have people who come over, and you look at the parents when the kids ask for things like an iPhone, and you see the parents shaking their heads, saying, “Maybe not this year.” For the kids who want a puppy, you have to come up with an excuse why they’re not going to get one. One of the best excuses, which I sort of ripped off from another Santa, was “Oh yeah. I gave one child a puppy last year and the dog pooped all over the sleigh. So I don’t do that.”
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