Fond memories of department stores past

Malls and online shopping are just not the same, particularly at Christmas

Nobody does nostalgia like a Baby Boomer. Especially when December comes a-knocking. Christmas is peak nostalgia time, when childhood memories fuse with the present to create impossible yearnings for holidays long gone, which in our imperfect minds were perfect.

Although Christmas is no longer my winter holiday of choice, resisting its allure is tough. Thank God for pre-brined kosher turkeys.

But a trip down holiday memory lane takes me beyond recollections of the traditional foods of my childhood: tourtières, Habitant pickles and Lambert ice cream bûche.

The best part of Christmas was our family tour of downtown department stores: Simpson's, Eaton's, Morgan's — now La Baie d'hudson — and of course, the haute French-canadian magasin à rayons Dupuis frères, the first of the old department stores to close, in 1978 after 110 years in business.

Simpson's closed its Montreal store in 1989, Eaton's in 1999 after trying to reinvent itself as an upscale Canadian Bloomingdale's. It was quite a stretch for a store loved by the tweed and twin-set brigade across Canada for its house brand of Bridget Jones-sized underwear.

Every department store had its own Santa, helped along by the fée des étoiles, a vision in white, blue and silver frou-frou organza, who waved her star-studded wand when it was time to move on. But best of all, Eaton's — and Dupuis frères — had a miniature train that would take children through an enchanted forest of toys. The one at Eaton's was the best: its Toyville train, built by the CPR at its Angus shop, took children right up to Santa's throne.

I can only guess that my love of department stores was nurtured in the toy department on the fifth floor at Eaton's. Or was it the sixth?

Department stores, a practical Victorian invention, are dying out, and that's a shame. They provide the ultimate shopping experience for our age: you can buy anything and everything under one roof. Like Amazon, but way more fun. Department stores, at any time of the year, did more than sell stuff, they sold desire.

Truth be told, I was an Eaton's fanatic yearround. I bought my first designer clothes at the Coach House. Where else could you get a washer-dryer combo, needles and thread to replenish the sewing box, have your picture taken after visiting the store's beauty salon, followed by a nice turkey lunch at Christmastime in its art deco palatial dining room, and do your grocery shopping, all in one day, in one place?

I swear the food hall sold the best smoked salmon on Earth.

I don't understand why department stores fell out of favour. They are so much easier to navigate than malls, which are so large today that one cannot walk from one end to the other without divine or mechanical intervention. The department store carried you gently, by escalator or by elevators manned by whitegloved operators, to where you needed to go. You could leave your coat and boots in the cloakroom and have your packages delivered to your car.

I visited many of the legendary department stores of the western hemisphere, from Harrod's to Les Galerie Lafayette, Macy's, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, Le Bon Marché in Paris, opened in 1838, Weston family-owned Selfridges in London, and the grand duchess of them all, Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Many now only sell fashion.

In Canada, Hudson's Bay remains a true department store, owned by Saks Fifth Avenue. Times are tough. Far from my favourite, at least it still exists. And it's a better store than it used to be, but its historic building in downtown Montreal is said to be for sale. The plan is reportedly to keep three floors for retail and turn the rest into office space and condos.

Now, don't get me started about what Holt Renfrew did to Ogilvy.