Hitched for the Holidays Winner of 2012 Holiday Window Competition

How do you know it is Christmas?

Parties, sure. Santa Claus ringing bells, sure. Shows and plays, sure. All the Christmas trees around the city, at the White House, on Capitol Hill, in the tree yards being sold, sure. The mailboxes stuffed with catalogues, the caroling, sure.

How do you know it is Christmas?

Windows, and we don’t mean the new Windows software.

Walk up and down streets and blocks, and look at the store windows. People, here and everywhere, have childhood memories of Christmas store windows and displays. Back in the day, people will say, there was an array of what was once called department stores with displays that could go from Winter Wonderland, Santa’s North Pole, a Nativity scene, or the most wonderful trains, going around mountains past the water towers, town halls and football fields of small towns that live on in our memories. You would shop and catch the holiday spirit and fever reflected in the store windows.

When the Georgetowner newspaper holds its annual windows display competition, it tries to reflect the season also, to encourage merchants and to promote the village in these seasonal times by rewarding their best efforts in reflecting and displaying the season for all of us. Those displays are like beacons for all of us, those who live and work in Georgetown, and our blessed visitors who come to dine, to soak up the holiday like a feast of hot cider and crumpet and tea, who come to skate, to shop, to do a holiday walkabout.

You might, in the course of your travels through our village, pass by a Santa Claus or two, an elf, some spirits from seasons past. If you should happen to see a boy named Tim, being carried on his shoulder carried by his father, well, you know what to say:
God bless us, every one.

A Peek Into Some of Our Favorite Windows
By nico dodd
The Georgetowner was thrilled that so many businesses decorated their windows for this holiday season. We talked to the decorators of some of our favorite, windows, including our winner, Hitched. Special thanks to our judge, Georgetown-based architect Christian Zapatka. To the right, we included many of the bright windows around the neighborhood. Don’t miss the chance to see these for yourself.

Hitched
Glamorously Bedecked
Hitched’s tinsel-and-ornament-covered wedding gown is simply elegant. The display is beautiful, but not overpowering. We love how the dress is beautiful enough to wear.

Annie Thompson and Amber Chislett were the two Hitched employees who created the display. Thompson said that creating the dress took about seven hours, and that materials include staples, hot glue and “love.”

This bauble-covered beauty is not the first creation of its kind on display in the window of Hitched, which also created a dress for Fashion Night Out.

Although the bridal and stationary boutique will be celebrating its seventh anniversary next week, the store will not be taking a break to rest on its laurels. According to Levine, many couples in the area get engaged during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, and one of the first things brides-to-be do are shop for their dress because the “gown sets the tone for the wedding.”

Jonathan Adler
Deliberately Kitsch
The retail space, formerly known as Gap Kids, has made a huge splash in Georgetown already with its amazing holiday windows. Because the store has so many windows, we were impressed at how well decorated they all were as a whole. All the paper chains in the windows are hand-made by the salespeople themselves. The brand’s “Style Craft Joy” theme is a clear influence.

Patisserie Poupon
Deliciously Festive
Patisseries Poupon’s larger than life window display was created by manager Martin Cotignola. He refers to the figure bedecked in cookies in the window as the “macaroon lady.” We loved the way that macaroons and doilies, things customers can find inside Patisserie Poupon, were used in the display. To celebrate the holidays, Patisserie Poupon will be having a raffle on Dec. 23 for a gift basket. Christmastime is one of the bakery and café’s busiest times of year, as the bakery sells “hundreds” of buches de Noel on Christmas Eve, says Cotignola.

The English Rose Garden
Festive Flora
“The bird is the word” for the florist near Wisconsin Avenue and O Street’s window, which is filled with feathers, birch branches, owls and amaryllises. Florist Tarameh Dadmarz says that it took about 40 minutes to decorate the window. With a wreath on every window, this is one of the most beautifully decorated buildings in Georgetown.

Georgetown BID Holiday Window Contest
There are many beautiful windows that are not here. Be sure to see all of them for yourself. The Georgetown BID is hosting its own holiday window contest.

The Georgetown BID’s theme for the holiday shopping season in Georgetown is “Deck the Halls, Forget the Malls”.

Participating stores are decorating their windows with up to four different materials of the store’s choice.

Photos of stores’ windows will be posted on the Georgetown BID’s official Georgetown Facebook page from Dec. 3. Facebook fans are invited to critique and like their favorite windows through Dec. 16

The store’s window with the highest amount of Facebook “Likes” will win.