Culture & Entertainment Notebook: 58 years of Christmas memories: Downtown Christmas display

Repurposed 30-year-old model trains, multiple feet of train track, hand-painted scenery and lots of imagination helped to create this year's Hutson's/Art Van Christmas Window display.

Since 1960, the Hutson family has decorated the interior of the front windows of 43 S. Main St. in Cape Girardeau -- now Art Van Furniture -- with alternating Christmas themes containing vintage animatronic elves and Santas, snowscapes, train sets and other winter-related elements.

"When we converted, that was one of the biggest questions we got from people in town, 'What about the window?' which was awesome," Chris Hutson said. "We didn't expect that at all."

Brother of Chris Hutson, Dave, said the first display nearly 60 years ago consisted only of several animatronic pieces and served solely as something to entertain the children when they came into the store.

Since then, the display has transformed and grown into a community tradition.

Dave Hutson observes a model train set while arranging the Hutson's Art Van Christmas Window display Tuesday.BEN MATTHEWS

"We start with the walls and covering up the window," Dave Hutson said. "When you see that plastic out front, it's on."

Chris Hutson said, "We're doing trains this year, which is cool; everybody loves trains. We haven't done it for three years."

This year's scene is modeled after a little mining town in Silverton, Colorado, which the Hutsons fell in love with when Chris Hutson was a young child, he said.

The display contains a lot of little things people don't know about and are special items to the family, he said -- such as a miniature orange truck within the scene.

"When my dad would take us to Colorado, he had an orange Bronco, and we would go up in the mountains in it and camp," Chris Hutson said. "So I found that Bronco, painted it, and we always set it up in the mountains as a tribute to my dad."

Chris Hutson calculated one of the model trains this year traveling 30 miles a day, circling the display many times.

And new to the train set display this year is a refreshed street-view of downtown Cape Girardeau, he said.

The backdrop painter was once Hutson's mother-in-law, he said, but now the scenery completion relies on willing family members to pitch in and help complete it before Thanksgiving.

This time around required "a lot of changing," he said, because the recent store update required all new ceilings and walls. The height of the scene is not as tall as it used to be, Hutson said.

But since 1988, the annual storefront display has maintained the same size every year, both Chris and Dave Hutson confirmed -- comprised of roughly 24 feet of street view real estate.

From year to year, the scenes are all a little bit different, Chris Hutson said. This year's display planning began in June, he said, but some displays are more involved and require more planning.

The yearly endeavor requires 45 to 60 days of attention to details, they said, along with taking on display "catastrophes" and anything else that happens.

"It always seems like Wednesday night at about 11 o'clock something bad happens," Chris Hutson said.

But why does the family continue the downtown tradition?

"It's just what we do. My grandfather, dad and my grandfather's brother, I don't think they ever did it to become a tradition," he said. "It's just one of those things that happened, which is pretty cool."

The display is open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week until Jan. 1.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

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