Like most everything at the thrift store, the windows get short shrift--mostly, someone just tosses furniture into them, or, this month, a bunch of random Christmas stuff, and that's the display.
Yesterday, however, when I asked Big Boss what to do with a creche set and he said, "You could put it in the window," I took that as permission to borrow one of the furniture guys and spend the afternoon decorating.
We took time to establish a color theme (reds & golds), and even a little narrative:
the wise men are walking across dry lands (orange!) to Bethlehem (higher up),
and the big angel in red is blessing the Holy Family...
Here it is in process---as yesterday's afternoon sun hit the window:
____________
I could tell my coworker loved doing something creative for a change--we had a lot of fun:
Window displays take a ton of work, of course, and we don't have the staff.
At Steeple People thrift store, where I volunteered a few years ago, a crew of volunteers put together fantastic displays every single Tuesday. The lead volunteer had worked in retail, she chose a theme of the week well in advance, so fitting stuff could be set aside for her, and the crew spent a whole day at it.
Sigh...
I am not decorating my books area for Christmas--partly because I don't want to be religiously specific.
The store doesn't evangelize, but it is "faith-based", and the faith is Christianity.
St. Vincent is a Catholic saint, and the Society of SVDP is, of course, a Catholic society, but the staff at my store is maybe a little more nondenominational or evangelical Christian than Catholic.
Remember one of the volunteers took me to task for putting Bibles on a bottom shelf, near the floor?
"We were talking about it," she told me, "and it doesn't seem respectful."
(I moved the Bibles to a higher shelf.)
In this milieu, I call myself a "sort-of Catholic", because it fits me best philosophically ("God is love; love one another; feed the hungry..."), even though I'm technically NOT a believer.
Still, "Catholic Humanist" fits me pretty well, culturally.
A lot of our customers, however, are Muslims, often from or with family from East Africa (lots of Somalis in town), or, I sense, people (often younger) with no religion. I see the media uses the term "Nones" to describe people who tick the box "none" for religious preference, but would anyone actually call themselves a "none"?
Yesterday, however, when I asked Big Boss what to do with a creche set and he said, "You could put it in the window," I took that as permission to borrow one of the furniture guys and spend the afternoon decorating.
We took time to establish a color theme (reds & golds), and even a little narrative:
the wise men are walking across dry lands (orange!) to Bethlehem (higher up),
and the big angel in red is blessing the Holy Family...
Here it is in process---as yesterday's afternoon sun hit the window:
____________
I could tell my coworker loved doing something creative for a change--we had a lot of fun:
At Steeple People thrift store, where I volunteered a few years ago, a crew of volunteers put together fantastic displays every single Tuesday. The lead volunteer had worked in retail, she chose a theme of the week well in advance, so fitting stuff could be set aside for her, and the crew spent a whole day at it.
Sigh...
I am not decorating my books area for Christmas--partly because I don't want to be religiously specific.
The store doesn't evangelize, but it is "faith-based", and the faith is Christianity.
St. Vincent is a Catholic saint, and the Society of SVDP is, of course, a Catholic society, but the staff at my store is maybe a little more nondenominational or evangelical Christian than Catholic.
Remember one of the volunteers took me to task for putting Bibles on a bottom shelf, near the floor?
"We were talking about it," she told me, "and it doesn't seem respectful."
(I moved the Bibles to a higher shelf.)
In this milieu, I call myself a "sort-of Catholic", because it fits me best philosophically ("God is love; love one another; feed the hungry..."), even though I'm technically NOT a believer.
Still, "Catholic Humanist" fits me pretty well, culturally.
A lot of our customers, however, are Muslims, often from or with family from East Africa (lots of Somalis in town), or, I sense, people (often younger) with no religion. I see the media uses the term "Nones" to describe people who tick the box "none" for religious preference, but would anyone actually call themselves a "none"?
2 comments:
The window looks great! Good job!
Thanks, bink! I hope we can decorate some windows together in 2019.
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