Stopping by the Arnotts Christmas window is a cherished tradition for many of us, lured by the glow of the twinkling decorations, festive scenes and oodles of Christmas present ideas for the last-minute shoppers among us.
This year, however, the busy elves behind the 181-year-old Henry Street store's dazzling window display are endeavouring to not only inspire and cheer passers by, but to answer an age old question: how does Santa fit enough presents for all the people across the world into his sack?
Janet Takuz, the Creative Concept Design and Manager for BTA (Brown Thomas and Arnotts), is the brains behind the spellbinding story in this year's displays, which have taken 'We Believe' as their theme this year.
Speaking in one of the windows earlier this week, in the shadow of that St Nick's bag itself spilling over with gifts, she broke down the inspiration behind the design.
When we meet, squeezed into the narrow corridors connecting each window to the main shop floor, the team are furiously at work, stringing balloons to the ceiling, crafting dazzling mechanisms straight out of Santa's workshop and covering as many surfaces as possible with glitter. While it's all go in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Takuz tells us that this design is "a year in the making".
"We start this around January, we'd start kind of exploring different narratives, different concepts. Then, when we kind of come up with a story, we'll design it across the six windows and then we'll kind of figure out what we think will engage with our customers the most, what parts will captivate children's imaginations the most.
"We narrow that into six stories and then we bring them to life!"
Among those stories are Santa's overflowing gift sack and a glimpse into his Super Computer, a dazzling, sparkling, high-tech imagining of how Santa plots out his work on Christmas Eve.
Despite having months to dream up the design, when it comes to building it the team has only one week - yes, just seven days - to recreate a little bit of Santa's magic in the windows.
"The guys are incredible, they spend all their time hanging all of these by hand, they're insanely talented and they work tirelessly around the clock to bring this to life", Takuz says.
For any eagle-eyed shoppers passing that recognise some decorations, the windows hold another secret. The team wanted to weave sustainability into their designs and so, instead of buying in brand new decorations, they dived into their own workshop, looking for past decorations that could be reused.
"This year we decided to see what decorations we had in storage from previous years and we decided that we would reuse instead of buying new decorations this year. All these decorations have a history within our windows", Takuz said.
It's clear from watching the Arnotts team at work that their Christmas windows are a labour of love, and go far beyond just giving shoppers a sense of what's in store. Speaking about the feedback they receive from visitors each year, Takuz says, "It's honestly what makes it worthwhile".
"When we hand these over, we do these for the public, this is our gift to the city and there's nothing better than when people tell us those stories of coming in with their families to Arnotts and looking at these windows, so it's really lovely to step back and kind of see, okay we've handed these over to you guys now and seeing those memories and photos, it really makes it worthwhile."
