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When my sister and I were kids we would ride around Windsor in the back seats of our parents’ cars and rate Christmas displays as we passed them. If Lola Magazine used to do shotgun art reviews, ours were BB-gun reviews. Just a quick number between 1 and 10. Artistry, elaborateness and feats of suburban ladder wrangling got the high numbers. Low marks were given things just bought at the store and plunked on the lawn – today we would give a 0 or 1 to those tacky inflatable snowmen.<\/p>\n
Yonge Street is worthy of high ratings right now, starting at the Bay Store. You can’t tell in this photo, but those white blurs on the side of the building are snowflakes falling. They installed — or hung rather — hundreds of LEDs on the side of the building, turning it into a huge temporary screen that makes the building seem to move, and might be the only falling snow we see this season.<\/p>\n
At one point in the cycle the iconic four Bay stripes appear. This probably makes it an advertisement, but one done very well and subtlety. The Bay feels like a slightly frumpy crown corporation sometimes, so those stripes seem so very Canadian — people still buy those winter coats with the four stripes — so they look winterish and don’t seem out of place. I suspect if some of the advertisers in Dundas Square were a little more artful in their campaigns — maybe focusing on their logo, or just doing something more thoughtful and location specific than whatever the not-so-timeless campaign-of-the-day is, the aesthetic critics of the square’s surroundings might be satisfied, though those concerned with Ad-Creep might still not be very happy. The Bay also did a good job on their window’s this season, making a stroll along Queen quite nice right now (and as always, Holt Renfew up on Bloor has magnificent displays –little tableau’s of fictional scenes of mildly slutty but kind-of-hot aristocratic ennui).<\/p>\n
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Up at Dundas Square, there is a lovely abstracted LED Christmas tree made up of multi-shaped balls that change colour. Every time I’ve been through the square over the last few weeks it’s surrounded by people taking pictures of it and with it, which is enough of a public endorsement for me: Toronto approves. They could have taken the traditional route and brought in a big Douglas Fir, which would have been nice, but not strange and unique like this.<\/p>\n
Strung up above the square are these exploding LED stars. Difficult to photograph with all the light behind them, but they are weird and wonderful and full of movement. It’s always a risk to try something new, especially with something so traditional as Christmas — like when singers do their own take on the Star Spangled Banner at baseball games and get booed — but it paid off here.<\/p>\n
On Saturday at noon they’ll be showing White Christmas on the big LED screen too, if you feel like standing in the cold watching Bing Crosby.<\/p>\n
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The creative risks continue further up Yonge Street, with the darkly-coloured displays that span the street. They’re polarizing, people love or hate them and I’ve heard people rant passionately either way. The straight lines banded together, the choice of colour, and how they’re hung are unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere. No reindeer shapes or Santa’s or fake wreaths — just abstract colour all the way from Alexander down to Queen. It reminds me of walking in Cardiff, Wales, a few years ago just before Christmas. The display strung over the high streets there were similar, but more old fashioned. They blinked and were made up of the usual green and red colours, but they had some kind of silent melancholy air to them — probably because I kept thinking about how Cardiff was once a depressed coal town, and these 1950s displays were the only brightness in otherwise dreary black dust covered times. Toronto isn’t Cardiff, but the Yonge lights capture, and update, that stiff-upper-lip happiness somehow. Or, they just might be neat lights, if you choose not to impose Welsh history on them, which might be a good idea.<\/p>\n
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![](\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/images\/SmallTree.jpg\")
Walking Yonge is quite enjoyable because of these lights, especially the part just south of College Park. The bars of light here look like the were blown into the trees, and they hang at all angles. I’ve heard people say the Yonge lights look cheap, but I think that’s just people getting used to the new look LED lights give off — they’re fuzzy looking and don’t have the sharpness of the old incandescent lights. Once people get used to them, people will like the Yonge lights much more. And in a time when most things are decided around a boardroom table, letting Yonge Street go a little weird and messy and Santaless should be applauded. Or at least strolled and rated. So far, 8 out 10 on our most arbitrary of scales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"