Ed. note: Morristown has just completed its first holiday windows contest. Columnist Fran Wood takes us back to a window from her childhood.
By Fran Wood
I’ve been through Morristown’s commercial area frequently in recent weeks – on wheels and on foot. Traipsing through the downtown is a habit of mine at holiday time, as I find the music and decorations contribute to my holiday spirit.
But I must confess they also puts me in mind of past holidays, when you could do virtually all your holiday shopping around the Green and on down South Street. Alas, perhaps with the increase in apartments, that will be the case again one day.
The holiday trapping I miss most of all is the series of Epstein’s windows that brought to life Charles Tazewell’s story The Littlest Angel.
For those unfamiliar with the 1946 classic (I suspect you can find it in the children’s section of every area library), it tells the tale of a four-and-a-half-year-old boy described as the most miserable angel in heaven. Not because he was a miserable child, but because he was bored.
His behavior, which of course was characteristic of his age, didn’t endear him to heaven’s other residents. He ran about the clouds, often whistling, his halo askew, dressed in a garment that was less than clean. He sang off-key in the Heavenly Choir, swung from the Golden Gates and was routinely late to nightly prayers.
Called to account for his behavior, The Littlest Angel’s excuse was that Heaven wasn’t fun. He was asked what one thing would make him happy, and he said he would like to have the little box he’d left under his bed at home.
The box contained a selection of the very things a little boy would consider treasures – a robin’s egg, a colorful butterfly, the collar worn by his dog who had died, a couple of smooth river stones.
I won’t spoil the rest of the story for you. Suffice it to say the imaginative folks in Epstein’s display department – an imagination reflected in countless Epstein’s windows over the years – captured the charming children’s story in a series of windows that brought Tazewell’s story to life. There were four or five of them in all, but the vignette I loved best was of The Littlest Angel chasing his halo across the clouds, the halo literally spinning.
I wonder what ever happened to that display – indeed, to all the memorable Epstein’s window displays that drew shoppers to their Green-facing façade every holiday season.
I like to think they’re lovingly wrapped and stored in a safe place, awaiting a time when a Morristown retailer remembers them and seeks them out to display for the enjoyment of holiday shoppers.
If you have knowledge to the contrary, please don’t tell me.
Fran Wood has never lived more than five miles from the Morristown hospital where she was born. A columnist for New Jersey newspapers for more than 30 years, she retired from The Star-Ledger at the end of 2008. She periodically blogs at www.njvoices.com.
