Navy Pier Decked Out for Holidays
Navy Pier was a winter wonderland once again this year with the help of CSSI. Festive holiday decorations designed by Tom Ryan were found in every corner.

Visitors were met with light pole banners sparkling with snowflakes and gateways covered with garland swags trimmed with oversized stockings waiting for Santa to fill with goodies.This year Clyde and Montague, the playful penguins that visit the Pier each holiday season, once again created Clyde's Crazy Contraption, an enormous kinetic cookie factory that hangs high above visitors' heads in the Family Pavilion. Large window boxes in the South Dock showed Clyde and Montague visiting various Chicago landmarks, like the Art Institute.

Below the cookie factory was the Snowflake Stage with a lifesize gingerbread house. This served as the perfect background for the Pier Players and photo opportunities with Santa.

Elsewhere on the Pier holiday shoppers were kept in the spirit of the season with lighted garland hanging in the retail hallways, while toy soldiers decked in garland awaited visitors in the food court and retail areas.

CSSI Dresses Up American Girl Store
When the American Girl store set out to win the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association's Best Children's Retail Christmas Windows award, they called on Chicago Scenic. Armed with American Girl's concepts, Tom Ryan designed the two windows. One window used the historical American Girls in a Victorian home at Christmas time, the other showed modern girls singing Christmas carols.

American Girl's Shane McCall wanted the mannequins to look as realistic and move as naturally as possible, so he and CSSI Project Manager John Beckman traveled to Garner-Holt Productions in California to supervise their creation and animation. Chicago Scenic's Wayne Adams supervised the three-day installation.

Chicago Scenic congratulates American Girl on winning this year's award.

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