Robert Hover
During the month of December, Woolworth’s became a holiday mecca for the budget-conscious family and a fantasy of tree angels, fragile glass ornaments, tinsel, foil garlands, glitter pine cones, nativity figures, and wooden Hanukkah dreidels. The original F.W. Woolworth Christmas catalogs featured beautifully illustrated watercolor covers, offering everything from Gene Autry holster sets to Woolco cotton threads, with the promise that the financially strained family could pay with Woolworth’s convenient layaway plan. Best of all, this promise, along with the endless supply of bargains, lasted all through the year, from one holiday to the next.
The F.W. Woolworth Co. played a large part in commercializing Christmas, forever altering seasonal shipping patterns of the working class. This trend started out rather innocently in the 1880s, when Frank Woolworth introduced his customers to the American version of a new “ready-made” tree trimming called a Christmas Ball. One thing led to another, until the aisles of his stores were filled with additional ready-made items such as garlands, Christmas trains, simulated evergreen trees, and elaborate nativity sets. Following World War II, plastic was introduced on a wide scale, adding an entirely new selection of gaudy, colorful, inexpensive items to decorate the home and entertain the masses. To make certain that people knew about this plethora of minutiae, the company started distributing holiday catalogs, loaded with descriptions of the latest gift fads, such as adjustable roller skates and the latest in shaving lotions. By the 1950s, F.W. Woolworth was a firmly established holiday haunt for bargain hunters, as his stores had become more bazaar than five and dime stores. A casual stroll through the aisles offered a pleasant, though sometimes overwhelming assault on the senses, full of vivid colors, sounds, and aromas of a cut-rate winter wonderland.
Everywhere you looked, you would see the familiar sign: “Welcome to America’s Favorite Christmas Store.” The display windows were transformed into a kaleidoscope of red, green, and gold. The Thanksgiving pumpkins were stored away in favor of silver bells, holly-decked gift-wrapping paper, and spray-on snow.
Store managers pulled out all the stops to entice shoppers inside, where employees bustled to and fro to help someone find the perfect wool scarf or bottle of “Evening in Paris” perfume. Dads could be seen carrying out large boxes of Christmas lights and ornaments, destined for the family tree, moms in tow with glittering tinsel. In the larger Woolworth stores, a piano player was often playing renditions of “Jingle Bells” with the hope of selling sheet music. In the smaller stores, piped in melodies of “Silent Night” made certain everyone maintained a proper holiday mood.
The candy counters overflowed with every type of delectable treat: festive ribbon candy, boxed Schrafft’s candies, pounds of cream Operas, and candy canes as long as your arm. And the toys! The children had never seen so many toys in one place! Everything from Plasticville towns to giant coloring books to fuzzy stuffed teddy bears filled the walls, and baskets of tops, rubber balls, and tiny cars lined the bottom row. When the adults weren’t looking, their young son would grab a Red Ryder toy rifle off the shelf, pull the trigger, and gleefully listen to the click-click-click, while the daughter pushed the belly button on a Baby Gurglee doll to hear its unique version of “waa-waa.” In both instances, the result would be the same—the loud utterance of the phrase so sweet to a Woolworth’s manager’s ears: “I want this!”
Fortunately, it was often possible that those toys would show up under the tree on Christmas morning. Woolworth’s reasonable prices and vast selection enabled the financially challenged family to partake of the season of giving (and spending) in style. If the purse was a little thin, Woolworth’s convenient layaway plan allowed you to pay as you go, and by Christmas or Hanukkah, the treasures would be yours.
All of this was a boon to the working class, who, until then, could only stare longingly into the beautiful display windows of higher-priced department stores. Now, struggling parents could surprise their children with more than just a handful of walnuts and a tangerine in an old wool Christmas stocking. F.W. Woolworth, along with any subsequent five-and-dime chain stores such as J.J. Newberry’s. W.T. Grant, Sprouse-Reitz, Ben Franklin, S.H. Kresge’s, McCrory’s, and others, worked hard to level the playing field.