9 Retailers the Holidays Aren't the Same Without

For decades these stores were focal points for seasonal shopping. Where are they now?

by Andy Markowitz, AARP, December 9, 2020

1exposure/eyevine/Redux

Some stores are just synonymous with the holidays — or were.

Depending on where and when you grew up, it might have been the iconic downtown department store with magical decorations and a line to see Santa. Or a chain staple packed with the year's hottest toys and latest gadgets.

These days, holiday shopping takes place largely online, and there's a lot to be said for that: the convenience, the selection and (in 2020, at least) the social distancing. But it's hard to imagine getting nostalgic in years to come about the amazing Black Friday deal you scored on an Instant Pot from Amazon.

That kind of gauzy memory is more the province of the retailers listed here. They ran the gamut of gift options and seasonal associations, but they have two important things in common. For decades, and for millions, they were a highlight of the holidays. And they're pretty much gone.

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PHOTO BY: Bettmann/Getty Images

Gimbels

Why we miss them: Nostalgia for vintage New York Christmases fueled by yearly screenings of Miracle on 34th Street, which immortalized Gimbels’ rivalry with Macy's for seasonal bragging rights on Herald Square. Gimbels’ holiday history goes deeper than that: Its Philadelphia store sponsored the first Thanksgiving Day parade, in 1920. (The Macy's parade debuted four years later.) Gimbels was also the setting for Will Ferrell's 2003 Christmas hit, Elf, but by then the actual store was just a memory.

Where are they now? The Gimbels chain, which also included flagships in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee and about 30 other stores, closed in 1986, 13 years after the Gimbel family sold the company to a retail division of British American Tobacco. The Herald Square site now houses the Manhattan Mall.
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PHOTO BY: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Toys R Us

Why we miss them: Miles of aisles packed with seemingly every imaginable toy, game and plaything. If you were a suburban kid in the second half of the 20th century, you were probably a “Toys R Us kid,” and year after year, your parents braved teeming crowds and snaking lines so you wouldn’t be the only one on the block without that must-have Transformer or Cabbage Patch Kid under the tree.

Where are they now? A textbook “category killer” for the way it took over the toy trade, Toys R Us fell prey to even bigger boxes like Walmart and the limitless virtual aisles of Amazon, closing down in 2018 after filing for bankruptcy the previous year. A successor company, Tru Kids, has since opened two smaller stores at malls in Texas and New Jersey, and relaunched the Toys R Us website, even issuing a holiday “hot toy list” this year. The online sales go through Amazon.
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PHOTO BY: Fairfax Media Archives/Getty Images

Woolworth's

Why we miss them: Ornaments. Woolworth's was the first store to sell manufactured Christmas tree decorations, starting in 1880, when Frank Woolworth bought a small consignment of German-made ornaments from an itinerant salesman. They sold out almost instantly, and from then until its demise more than a century later, the prototypical five-and-dime was a go-to spot for a dizzying variety of baubles to deck the halls, walls, tables and trees.

Where are they now? The last U.S. Woolworth's store closed in 1997, and the F.W. Woolworth Co. morphed into Foot Locker (the athletic-shoe chain started out as one of Woolworth's numerous subsidiaries). The Woolworth brand itself survives online — and sells Christmas decorations, naturally — and its website hints at a new generation of physical locations coming in 2022.
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PHOTO BY: Tim Boyle/Getty Images

Marshall Field's

Why we miss them: The “Great Tree.” For generations of Chicagoans, holidays at Marshall Field's were “a near-sacred family ritual,” notes Smithsonian magazine, not least because the grand department store on State Street was home to the world's largest indoor Christmas tree, an evergreen towering 45 feet above the famed Walnut Room restaurant. Marshall Field's was also renowned for its elaborate Christmas window displays, often featuring Uncle Mistletoe, a mascot the store created to counter rival Montgomery Ward's holiday invention, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Where are they now? Much to the dismay of the locals, the historic State Street store became a Macy's in 2006 after the New York retailer's parent company acquired the Field's chain, which had changed hands multiple times since the 1980s. The Great Tree still rises annually above the Walnut Room, although it's now artificial.
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PHOTO BY: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Radio Shack

Why we miss them: Retro tech. Radio Shack made its name as a haven for tinkerers with its exhaustive stock of cables, fuses and connectors. But the chain really took off — and became a holiday shopping staple — in the ‘70s, when it began selling its own lines of trendy consumer electronics, from Realistic CB radios to the TRS-80, one of the first commercially available personal computers (and for a time, the most popular). And who could forget the Pettable Portable, a stuffed animal with a built-in AM/FM radio?

Where are they now? Over-reliance on brick-and-mortar sites as electronics consumers shifted online helped doom Radio Shack in the new century. In 2017, after its second bankruptcy in three years, the company shuttered almost all of its remaining 1,300 stores (down from a peak of 7,500 around 2000). It's mounting something of a comeback under new ownership built mainly on e-commerce and franchising, with about 500 retail outlets, many dubbed RadioShack Express and located inside larger stores.
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PHOTO BY: REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo

Circuit City

Why we miss them: The streets were paved with bargains. The big box electronics chain with the red plug entrance was a magnet for holiday shoppers seeking TVs, audio components and appliances, drawn by guaranteed low prices and goofy seasonal commercials. The company even released its own Christmas albums, two volumes of holiday standards performed by pop and soul stars and available only from Circuit City.

Where are they now? Outmaneuvered by rival Best Buy, damaged by questionable management moves (like laying off its most seasoned salespeople en masse to cut labor costs) and done in by the Great Recession, Circuit City declared bankruptcy in November 2008 and closed its stores a few months later. The brand was relaunched under new ownership in 2018 as an online-only retailer.
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PHOTO BY: Tim Boyle/Getty Images

KB Toys

Why we miss them: The mall-ternative to Toys R Us. Founded in 1922 by siblings Harry and Joseph Kaufman (the name stands for Kaufman Brothers) as a wholesale candy business, KB evolved into the second-biggest toy retailer in the country, growing to 1,300-plus stores and more than $1 billion in annual sales after jumping on the mall boom in the ‘70s. For many families, that made KB more convenient than its big box rival, and no holiday shopping trip to the mall was complete without a stop here.

Where are they now? After numerous acquisitions and two bankruptcies, KB Toys went out of business in 2009. Toys R Us purchased its logo, website and other intellectual assets and introduced a line of KB Classic toys. In 2018, as Toys R Us was collapsing, Strategic Marks, a holding company for vintage brands, announced plans to open hundreds of pop-up KB stores for the holidays, but the relaunch has stalled.
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PHOTO BY: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Sharper Image

Why we miss them: Gadgets the folks on your list didn't know they needed. The Sharper Image's high-end lifestyle products were the answer to the question of what to get for the man or woman for whom you have no idea what to get. (Mainly men: The Washington Post called it “the ultimate uncle-gift emporium.") After a long, fruitless mall search, you could finally cross that final name off with a fog-free shaving mirror or a car-shaped videocassette rewinder. Or, if nothing else, rejuvenate with a ride in a massage chair.

Where are they now? The original Sharper Image went bankrupt in 2008, buffeted by years of losses and fallout from a class action lawsuit over the efficacy of one of its most popular products, the Ionic Breeze air purifier. New private-equity owners revived the brand online in 2010, and it still offers a holiday gift guide stuffed with variably useful and goofy gizmos, from digital BBQ forks to levitating football helmets.
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PHOTO BY: Chicago Tribune/Getty Images

Sears Wish Book

Why we miss them: The ultimate holiday wish list. Sears may still exist (with about 60 stores nationwide), but the venerable retailer's holiday history is bound up with paper, not bricks and mortar. The seasonal Wish Book catalog was the stuff dreams were made of — several hundred pages of products to be pored over in anticipation of what would end up under the tree. For many families, the holidays started in late summer when this doorstop arrived on the doorstep.

Where are they now? Sears discontinued its regular catalogs in 1993 and downsized the Wish Book, which had reached a whopping 834 pages the previous year, to fewer than 200 pages. The company kept producing ever-slimmer versions of the Wish Book until ending its run in 2011, returning in 2017 with what turned out to be a one-off digital and print edition. Vintage versions are available on eBay and from Hillcrest Books, an online merchant specializing in old catalogs.