The flagship location of the Utah-based company offers a fantasy Christmas
to downtown visitors with its “The Mechanics of Christmas” window.
Salt Lake City, Utah (Dec. 2, 2011) — Hoards of downtown holiday shoppers used to crowd around the ZCMI store front window every December to marvel at the annual candy display.
Deseret Book is now reviving the spirit of that tradition with the inaugural “Mechanics of Christmas” display at its downtown store, located directly across the street from the south gates of Temple Square. This year’s installment is the whimsical and magical “Gingerbread Cookie Factory.”
The larger-than-life display is 25 feet long and 12 feet tall, and took four months to build. A high-tech video display features flames in the “oven,” and hidden speakers and scent-emitters round out the multi-sensory experience. The final product is a Victorian-style cookie factory with several moving parts that takes viewers through the process of gingerbread cookie making, complete with a complimentary Christmas treat at the end.
Deseret Book is also selling $1 cups of hot chocolate to visitors who would like something warm with their free cookie after wandering through the Lights at Temple Square.
A short video documenting the creation of the machine can be found on Deseret Book’s YouTube channel. An extended version can also be found here.