Enter we now the season of rituals. The soul loves them, with their feeling of security. It's a smell of cookies baking, the annual decorations hauled out and the stories about them re-told. I still have the tree-topper my parents bought as young marrieds, and I hope my kids tell their kids about it.
And on the Friday after Thanksgiving, long before it became Black, hordes (including my family making the 2-lane-highway drive from Desloge) descended on downtown St. Louis. Retail employees working on Thanksgiving is actually nothing new – think of the folks madly decorating the department stores so that folks could walk into the wonderland en route to see Santa, ride the miniature train, lose mittens…. Jean Anderson had it right in "A Christmas Story".
Much of that ritual, anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, was the Christmas windows. Yes, the animated figures were charming. But it was the large corner window with the mountain of trains that caused sidewalk traffic to jam up. No one moved, watching train after train scoot by through tunnels and stations in a carefully constructed landscape. None of this 47 identical cars slowly trundling by stuff, oh, no. Interesting cars with various functions and labels came behind streamliners or old-fashioned locomotives. And it wasn't just small boys that were fascinated. (What is it about boys and trains? Is it like girls and horses?)
But time passed, downtown lost its Mecca status, and Macy's bought Famous-Barr, the home of the trains. At least they didn't throw everything out. But even the storage space for the train layout was an impediment, and after some consideration, it has been sent to the Museum of Transportation, where it's just been unveiled as a holiday treat.
And that's in addition to the multigauge layout that's almost as big. This is delightful stuff, displays that manage to be both exciting and calming at the same time. And they're indoors. Outside, however, in the Wabash caboose, Santa will visit on selected days, and Mrs. Claus will be baking cookies. Lots of other outside things to inspect, too, of course.
Time to start a new tradition, I'd say.
St. Louis Museum of Transportation
2967 Barrett Station Rd.
314-965-6885
www.transportmuseumassociation.org
Thursday-Sunday
Admission: $5-$8