City business gets into the Christmas spirit with nostalgic window display

The holiday display will be part of tonight’s Merry and Bright Night festivities in downtown Monongahela.

Noel’s Primitive Shop and Gifts in Monongahela is bringing back the old tradition of storefront Christmas decorations right on time for the holiday season.

Shop owner Karen Langol and Stephanie Woods were inspired to decorate the storefront windows of Noel’s Primitive, located at 221 W. Main St., after reminiscing about the days they used to enjoy seeing all of the elaborate decorations at department stores in downtown Pittsburgh.

In the decades when Pittsburgh’s downtown was crowded with department stores and other retail shops, Light Up Night meant the unveiling of mechanized Christmas display windows.

Families would come to the city to walk by the Horne’s store, the Jenkins Arcade, Kaufmann’s, Gimbels, and in older days, Rosenbaum’s and Frank & Seder department stores.

“So I hope we brought all that back, for like kids’ imaginations. I really wanted to do that, so I hope we nailed it,” Langol said.

Langol said she is hoping to bring back the beloved tradition.

For more than a century, it’s been a tradition for department stores and local shops alike to entice shoppers to come inside and check out their goods by decking out their windows with eye-catching displays. The custom dates to the 1870s, and Macy’s is widely credited for popularizing the tradition in the U.S.

Noel’s storefront has two main windows and Langol, along with the help of Tracie Rock, helped decorate the right window with an animatronic reindeer, Christmas trees, snowmen, and other fun holiday decorations.

Woods and her 6-yearold daughter, Ellie Woods, helped decorate the left side of the storefront window with Christmas trees, danc- ing mice, a little fireplace, a Steelers stocking, and even a bed with Elsa, a character from Disney’s “Frozen,” sleeping with cookies and milk on her nightstand.

Langol said they had a “North Pole theme” for their window, and Woods worked to have a “A Night Before Christmas” theme. Woods said they wanted children in Monongahela to experience the magic of Christmas the way they used to.

“My parents would take me to Pittsburgh all the time to see the windows,” Woods said. “So that’s when I (asked) Karen, ‘Want to do a window so we can show the kids what one of these windows would look like?’ Let them get a chance to see it, because some don’t get down into Pittsburgh, and I don’t know if they do that anymore or not.”

Their window displays were done in time for tonight’s Merry and Bright Night. The annual holiday celebration will begin at 5:30 today in Monongahela.

Langol, the current president of the Main Street Program in Monongahela, encourages the public to visit their festive city and businesses.

“That is my dream for Monongahela, that this town becomes a destination point to shop,” she said. “Because some of my stuff, I would say a lot of it, is one of a kind, because I make it, so I’m hoping that this shop becomes a big destination point.” Langol worked for a long time as a health care worker, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, she had the opportunity to open up her own store on Main Street..

At her shop, she sells a variety of items, which include handmade quilts, candles, kitchen towels, wall decorations, clothes and more. Langol said they also do a lot of special orders where customers request certain items.