Christmas at Les Grands Magasins

This afternoon we journeyed into town – it turns out that many Montmartre residents think of themselves as not quite in Paris – to see the Grand Magasins, the big department stores.  In this case, it was Printemps and Galeries Lafayette.

The former is celebrating its 150^th anniversary, as its façade proudly announces.  

Its windows were various winter scenes with moving marionettes.  A sort of angel appeared in each one.  There were two interactive windows where people could smile into a small circle where there was some sort of camera, and a few seconds later, the angel figure appeared on the screen with the person’s face.  While it clearly looked intended for children, most of the folks using it were adults. 

 

Galeries Lafayette also had window displays, which followed a rather too-complicated story of a baby alien robot trying to get home.  This may have been a tie-in with the Star Wars movie, which permeated the displays inside and on the side-street windows.  

The signature decoration of Galeries Lafayette is the Christmas tree hanging from the interior dome.  It was well worth going through security (opened bags and open coats) to see it.  Last year it was upside down and various shades of pinks and blues.  This year it was right side up, in gold, black and crystals.  It looked a bit more like a New Year’s tree than a Christmas one.  But I have to admit, it did put me in the mood to shop.  The massive crowds put me off, though, and as soon as we were done taking in the decorations, it was back home to a quiet evening looking at the view of Paris.