Cheapflights.com Goes Window Shopping This Holiday Season

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Nov 18, 2014) - 'Tis the season, folks. With holiday lights starting to twinkle, Santa sightings on the rise and even snow making its first appearance in many places, the holidays are definitely upon us. In another sign of the season, the traditional unveilings of festive window displays is getting into high gear at storefronts near and far. The travel experts at Cheapflights.com, the online leader in finding and publishing travel deals, have borrowed Santa's sled and scoured the globe to reveal the Top 11 Festive Window Displays around the World that will definitely get shoppers into the holiday spirit and bring a cheery smile to everyone's face -- even Scrooge.

Showing the global popularity of this tradition, below are five magical window displays from up north in Canada to down under in Australia and many places in between:

• Myer, Melbourne, Australia -- A Winter Wonderland isn't quite what you'd expect from an Australian Christmas, but it's exactly what downtown shoppers will be getting when they venture to Myer in Melbourne this year. For Myer's 59th Christmas animated window, a team of more than 40 artisans created a 3D adaption of the children's book "Santa Claus and the Three Bears" by Maria Modugno. A group of skilled workers spent 17,000 hours putting together the scene from a range of materials including more than 650 feet of glitter jazz fabric, 110 pounds of faux snow and 55 pounds of sugar glitter. For the grand unveiling on Nov. 8, Bourke Street Mall was transformed into a little slice of the North Pole as a blanket of "snow" fell from the Myer rooftop.

• Selfridges, London, United Kingdom -- Dedicated to some of the most enchanting tales of all time, from the 300-year-old "Sleeping Beauty" right up to 1978's "The Snowman," Selfridges' 2014 window display honors 25 classic stories by giving them a contemporary, luxurious twist. Topping things off is the giant "Destination Christmas" centerpiece made with more than 10,000 lights and complete with Selfridges' own top-hatted and monocled Golden Goose. Sticking with the storytelling theme, Selfridges' in-store cinema will screen several classic tales like "Pinocchio" and "It's A Wonderful Life" over the Christmas period.

• Macy's, New York, N.Y., United States -- Macy's was the first department store in New York to introduce holiday window displays when it debuted as an animated Christmas window in the early 1870s. The team at Macy's spend an entire year planning out each display and the process begins almost immediately after the previous year's is taken down. When it comes to installation, it takes a talented team of Macy's display artists, graphic artists, sculptural artists, builders, animators, carpenters, electricians and music and sound experts 21 days and nights to complete the mammoth task. This year's theme, "Santa's Journey to the Stars," will be unveiled on Nov. 20. Shoppers will be treated to a display of custom-made planets, handmade elves and toys lit by the twinkle of thousands of lights.

• La Maison Ogilvy, Montreal, Quebec, Canada -- Founded in 1866, Montreal's La Maison Ogilvy started life as a dry-goods store -- a far cry from today's luxury, boutique department store. Every year since 1947, the store unveils its much-loved holiday window. From Nov. 14 until the first week of January the acclaimed "Mill in the Forest" mechanical display returns to enchant shoppers with its dancing ducks, bears, rabbits, screaming monkeys and the ever-popular jumping frogs. And if you're wondering why the critters look a little extra stylish this year it's thanks to the team at Harricana by Mariouche who created their eco-friendly outfits.

• Galeries Lafayette, Paris, France -- Things are getting a little topsy turvy at Paris's iconic Galeries Lafayette this Noel. For 2014, Galeries Lafayette's iconic 82-foot-tall Christmas tree will be standing on its head! Suspended from the store's famous 100-year-old Art Nouveau dome, the brilliantly colored tree will feature a "monstrous" sound and light display every hour set to dazzle an estimated 150,000 visitors every day. Bringing a good dose of festive mischief to proceedings, Gustave the Monster and his gang of fuzzy buddies are set to star in the store's animated window display on Boulevard Haussmann.

Rounding out this list of enchanting window displays across the globe are: Fortnum & Mason, London, United Kingdom; Smith & Caughey's, Auckland, New Zealand; Bergdorf Goodman, New York, N.Y., United States; Harvey Nichols, Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin & London, United Kingdom & Ireland; David Jones, Sydney, Australia; and Bloomingdale's, New York, N.Y., United States. To read more on these and to see Cheapflights.com's complete list, visit: www.cheapflights.com/news/top-11-festive-window-displays-around-world.

About Cheapflights.com part of the Momondo Group
Momondo Group is an online travel media and technology company that is driven by the belief that an open world is a better world. The group now serves travel search and inspiration to over 17.5 million visitors a month -- plus 7 million travel newsletter subscribers -- via its Cheapflights (www.cheapflights.com) and momondo (www.momondo.com) brands.

Skygate began the sourcing of complex air-travel data in 1992, while Cheapflights pioneered the online comparison of flight deals for users in 1996 and momondo launched meta-search in the Nordic countries in 2006.

The Group has offices in London, Copenhagen and Boston with a consumer base across more than 30 core international markets but users all over the world.

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