Christmas Past

Modern Christmas has a symbiotic relationship with commercial businesses.  Portland is no exception to this rule. Meier & Frank and now Nob Hill Christmas would host Santa Land, and opposite Lipman Wolfe’s and now the Portland Spirit hosts Cinnamon Bear.  Alpenrose Dairy created Storybook Lane at Lloyd Center and later created Dairy Ville and moved Storybook lane there along with several expansions to their Christmas offerings.  The Daylight 4449 steam locomotive now lives at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center who provide Holiday Express rides each year.  There is so much more to Portland’s Christmas Past and it all needs to be preserved and kept fully available for Children to enjoy each Christmas.

We host two events each year for the public to come in.  Christmas in Summer is the last weekend in June and then starting the Friday before Thanksgiving though Christmas Eve we are open for our annual Christmas Tree Market and Santa Land is open free of charge to visit.

We currently have in the collection items from Alpenrose Dairy; Dairy Ville, Storybook Lane, Circus Wagons, & the Opera House. Meier & Frank window displays, 12 Days of Christmas and 2 modern “Carolers” & “Nutcracker”, Santa's Sleigh from TV show the Librarians, numerous animatronic elves from other past department store displays, and a late 1800’s Horse Drawn Wagon from a wagon builder in Idaho.

Window displays from Meyer and Frank are being restored and placed back in to business windows free for everyone to enjoy, read more information below and look at the map at the bottom of the page for where you can find these displays.  Our North West Portland facility is where we store and restore these displays, and some can be viewed during the Christmas in Summer event at the NW Portland building.  We currently have restored; The Carolers, The Nutcracker, Blitzen, 5 Golden Rings, and Santas Workshop.

Using photos, original pieces we have found, stories from families and representative additions we have been building Santa Land which now features the Reindeer House, Santa's Chair with snowflake backdrop, O scale Lionel Polar Express train, N scale train built by Portland Area N-Trak model railroaders, and Tualatin Valley Model Railroad Club

We are always looking for more to add to the collection, either more from other Portland collections as well as items from other Department Stores that we can use to rebuild the old Portland displays with.  Let us know if you know of any forgotten Christmas past or would like to help us with the restoration efforts. You can also help by clicking this link to help us cover expenses that the annual Holiday Market does not cover.