In the tradition of...

Remember when department store windows were all done-up special for the holidays? I do. Stopping to see the decorations; moving twinkling, snowing...it was magical, for a kid. I remember my parents making a special trip downtown so my brothers and I could see the windows of Spokane's The Crescent, all decked out for the season. Modern day kids are being robbed!

Those memories all came flooding back to me as I stood on the sidewalk in front of Sunlan Lighting on Mississippi St, in Portland...

Then I got closer and read the sign...

Damn. Now I was standing on the sidewalk both smiling and almost on the verge of tears. Happy tears, remembering all the wonderful Christmas celebrations with my family. I was lucky to have one set of grandparents we were very close to.

If you page back up and look at the Santa in dead-center of the window display you'll see he's the same as this guy, who is currently lighting up the holiday scene at my brother's house in Phoenix. My parents have the same Santa, both are discovered relics from a building they used to own.

So deep in a nostalgic mood I walked a few blocks to where I'd figured out the Santa clones were this year. The man behind the Santas, Chris Willis, had given out a few clues as to their location on Instagram (below). It was a mystery fairly easily solved. Except one of the photos Chris included confused me, I thought they would be standing on the sidewalk, instead they are hanging out in a vacant store front.

This wasn't my first Santa clones encounter, nope, back in 2016 I found them in a nearby front yard (that blog post here). I'm not sure why I didn't think to hunt them down in 2017 or 18.