SPOKANE, Wash. — The department store Christmas display. It's a staple of any holiday season. For decades in Spokane, that staple resided in the Crescent.
But then, the store shut down. And ever since, Spokane has been left without iconic windows filled with festive figurines.
"We would spend literally hours just in front of these windows because there was so much detail and things to see. And just as a little kid it was like this vortex, it just pulled you in," said Matt Jensen, an executive with The Davenport Hotels. "It was such a big part of downtown, and the Crescent was just an anchor for the holiday season."
But when the store shut down, the displays didn't go to the dumpster.They went to the basement.
And that's where Elisabeth Hooker and the Downtown Spokane Partnership come in.
"This is a question that the community's been asking our organization for a long time,” said Hooker. “And when the community asks for something, if you have the ability to make it happen, then why not?"
Hooker spearheaded an effort to take the dilapidated, sometimes decapitated figurines, and whip them into shape.
"I've never been so dirty in my entire life,” she said. “It's been a couple months of just being covered in grime, and late nights painting, looking at photos, trying to figure out what's the correct way to paint these dolls."
She never got to see the original displays, but her mother, Patt, did.
"We would go and stand… and you can spend a long time looking," said Patt Hooker.
Restoring the displays was only one part of the project. Elisabeth Hooker also needed to find a place to put them. The answer seemed obvious: The Davenport Grand Hotel.
"There's a great problem in downtown right now in that there's no great retail windowfront,” she said. “But along Main Avenue, we have 120 linear feet of beautiful big windows to make this happen."
The Davenport loved the idea – the displays meant a lot to folks like Jensen, too.
"That was what my childhood,” said Jensen. “I came and saw these holiday scenes as a child and had amazing memories of it."
With restored figurines and big windows to put them in, the dream was ready to become a reality once again.
So Friday afternoon, at a grand unveiling at the Davenport Grand, for the first time in years, Spokane citizens got to see this timeless representation of the spirit of Christmas.
Some were seeing it for the first time in decades, some for the first time ever. But all had one word to describe the feeling: magical.
"I did cry a little bit,” said Elisabeth Hooker.
"I'm teared up because it's quite an accomplishment, and I love her for bringing back history," said her mother.
The Davenport plans on continuing this tradition into the future. And Elisabeth Hooker plans on continuing to restore some additional displays that remain in the basement, so that next year, another group of Spokanites can experience the magic all over again.