This year will be the first time that the Bay will not be around at Christmas. I loved to go there, specifically the downtown Toronto store at Queen and Yonge, and shop for Christmas ornaments. My mother and I would go downtown every year back when Simpson’s used to occupy that site. In the eighties the Christmas decorations were located on an upper floor, and the anticipation grew as we took the series of escalators ever higher. Simpson’s, and later the Bay, would have the floor set up in several small rooms, showcasing all kinds of decorations in displays that featured them on trees, on the walls or set out on tables. I would always get a new decoration or item of Christmas decor at the Bay.
I recall the year when Simpson’s moved its Christmas merchandise to the lower level. Thus when you entered the store off the underground PATH network you were greeted immediately by the trees and the glitter of tinsel and Christmas balls. Rooms of ornaments, and even Santa himself, were stationed on the lower level. The layout often meant stumbling into the same room over and over as you navigated your way around to see everything, but I always liked taking another look at what I had already seen. My mother and I would spend an hour and a half there.
I believe that 2019 was the last year the Bay had its Christmas store on the lower level. COVID ruined Christmas for everybody in 2020, yet the following year, 2021, saw the return of the Christmas store to the top floor. By then, it was an anticlimax, as the merchandise was a fraction of what it used to be. I was very disappointed that year, as I had missed the Bay’s Christmas store in 2020 yet in 2021 it felt as if the store had treated Christmas as an afterthought. I would not be aware of the Bay’s corporate crisis for a while yet, and in the years to come the Christmas experience at the store wasn’t fun anymore because the setup was so sparse.
For the past three years from 2022 to 2024 the Bay relocated its Christmas merchandise to street level, opposite the Queen Street entrance. I could look at everything in only twenty minutes. I rarely bought anything either, as the selection of merchandise had been drastically reduced. The last decoration I bought there was a Christmas ball painted in creamy white with green and red diagonal stripes. The ball looked like a large peppermint candy, and so realistic. I got one, and then after Christmas got another from the Bay store at Square One when all the Christmas merchandise was deeply discounted.
Although the last four years offered little to look through, I will miss not having the Bay around this Christmas. And today, the eleventh anniversary of my mother’s death, I miss her as I go about my Christmas preparations. I have already started baking her shortbreads and have made fourteen tins so far. Mark and I are looking for a new Christmas tree for his place, and I set up the lights around my garage two days ago. They are clear coloured twinklers this year.
After my mother and I attended the Santa Claus Parade in 2012, we stopped by the Bay to get an early peek at the Christmas decorations for sale. We would return a few weeks later on our annual Christmas shopping trip downtown to explore every inch of the decoration rooms.