On a frigid Sunday evening, December 14, crowds gathered along Yonge Street as Cadillac Fairview officially unveiled the return of Toronto’s iconic holiday windows at the former Hudson’s Bay flagship at Queen and Yonge. For the first time since Hudson’s Bay shuttered its Canadian department stores earlier this year, the illuminated display bays once again glowed with festive scenes, drawing families, tourists, and longtime downtown residents back to a ritual that has defined Toronto’s holiday streetscape for more than a century.
This year’s windows mark both a revival and a reinvention. With the department store behind the glass now closed, Cadillac Fairview has repositioned the historic façade as a leased experiential platform, beginning with a holiday activation by Mars Wrigley Canada. The confectionery giant has taken over seven prominent windows along the Yonge Street side of the building, transforming them into animated tableaux designed to restore a sense of wonder to the corner while signaling a new future for one of the city’s most storied retail landmarks.
Cadillac Fairview, which owns the former Hudson’s Bay and Saks Fifth Avenue complex connected to CF Toronto Eaton Centre, has made clear that the holiday windows are no longer tied to a single department store tenant. Instead, the landlord is treating the building’s extensive street-facing windows along Yonge, Bay, and Richmond streets as a stand-alone experiential and media asset.
Publicly, Cadillac Fairview has framed the initiative as an effort to honour and preserve a cherished Toronto tradition, even as it explores new commercial and cultural uses for the space. Internally, the move also reflects a pragmatic response to the closure of Hudson’s Bay, which left a massive downtown anchor vacant after the retailer filed for creditor protection with more than a billion dollars in debt and failed to secure a buyer.
By reviving the windows, Cadillac Fairview is extracting value from the building’s most visible asset while longer-term redevelopment and re-tenanting plans are evaluated. The Queen Street frontage remains partially blocked due to Ontario Line construction at the intersection, but the Yonge Street run is fully active for the holidays, with additional bays on Bay and Richmond streets being marketed to future partners.
Mars Steps Into the Spotlight on Yonge Street
Mars Wrigley Canada’s activation represents the first major branded tenant to step into the revived window program. Known globally for confectionery brands such as M&M’s, Snickers, Twix, and Skittles, Mars is best recognized by consumers for candy, even though its largest business today is pet care.
For Ellen Thompson, General Manager of Mars Wrigley Canada, the opportunity to animate the windows carried both excitement and responsibility.
“So we are so excited to be bringing the wonder of Mars to downtown Toronto,” Thompson said during an interview at the unveiling. “We are thrilled to be bringing back the holiday windows so we can have another year of celebration, and we know that Toronto will absolutely love it.”
The activation spans seven windows and unfolds as a continuous narrative. Thompson described it as a storybook journey following the “elves of Mars” through a whimsical day in their world.
“It starts with a storybook that tells the story of the elves of Mars and a day in the life of their journey,” she explained. “They start their day getting their supplies ready, then they make their way to a chocolate factory. Then they have a very magical special clock, and they go through a winter wonderland, finally finishing their day celebrating with their family and their furry friends.”
The scenes are animated, brightly coloured, and unmistakably festive, designed to be enjoyed by children and adults alike as they move along the sidewalk from window to window.
Crowds Brave the Cold for the Unveiling
Despite freezing temperatures, the unveiling drew a sizable crowd on Sunday night. Parents lifted children onto shoulders for a better view, couples paused mid-walk to watch the moving figures, and groups lingered to take photos and videos as the curtains lifted.
For many in attendance, the moment carried emotional weight. The disappearance of The Bay windows earlier this year had sparked concern that a defining part of Toronto’s holiday identity might vanish permanently. Seeing the displays return, even under a different model, felt like a restoration of something deeply familiar.
Thompson acknowledged that sense of civic expectation, noting that the project was driven as much by public sentiment as by brand ambition.
“My team and I happened to be walking downtown one day, and we saw the windows were boarded up,” she said. “We were talking about how sad it was that the windows wouldn’t be returning again this year. Then we started looking around and saw that other people felt exactly the same way, and we knew we could do something about it.”
Built in a Month, Crafted by Hand
Remarkably, the entire project came together in roughly a month, a compressed timeline by the standards of large-scale holiday installations. Thompson said the speed was made possible by close collaboration with Cadillac Fairview and a Toronto-based production company that fabricated the displays.
“Everything is original, everything is handmade,” she said. “We partnered with a production company here in Toronto, and they’ve been wonderful partners, as well as the building allowing us to take over the windows for the holiday season.”
Mars also worked with Ana Fernandez, a creative director who had previously been involved with the historic holiday windows, to ensure continuity with past displays.
“We hope that people will see that authenticity and the tradition they’ve come to know and love, but also see a little bit of a modern twist that we brought,” Thompson said.
For Mars, the project represented a step outside its usual comfort zone.
“We’ve never done this before,” Thompson said. “This is definitely a little bit out of our comfort zone, but we heard the city of Toronto asking for it, and we thought we could do it.”
Blending Brand Storytelling With Community Impact
Beyond spectacle, the activation includes a charitable component tied to Food Banks of Canada. Visitors are encouraged to visit a dedicated website and fill out a simple holiday wish list, triggering a one-dollar donation from Mars for each submission.
“When people visit us at wonderofmars.ca and fill out a holiday wish list, we’ll make a one-dollar donation to the Food Banks of Canada for every wish list we receive,” Thompson said. “That way we can spread the holiday cheer, not only here in Toronto, but across all of Canada.”
The campaign aligns with Mars’s broader corporate principles, which emphasize responsibility and mutuality, and adds a social dimension to what might otherwise be seen purely as brand marketing.
A Landmark Site With Deep Cultural Roots
The significance of the Queen and Yonge holiday windows extends far beyond their current tenant. The tradition dates back more than a century, to the early 1900s, when Simpsons first installed elaborate Christmas displays at the corner. By the 1920s, visiting the competing Eaton’s and Simpsons windows had become a seasonal ritual for Toronto families.
Over time, the displays evolved from static toy arrangements into animated scenes with motors, music, and narrative themes such as Santa’s workshop, toy factories, and festive villages. When Hudson’s Bay took over the flagship in the 1990s, it modernized the windows while preserving their role as a hallmark of downtown December.
For generations, seeing the windows marked the unofficial start of the holiday season, often paired with trips to nearby attractions or skating rinks. Few retail installations in Canada have matched their emotional resonance or longevity.
That legacy made the closure of Hudson’s Bay in mid-2025 feel particularly final. With the store gone, many assumed the windows would disappear as well, another casualty of the decline of the traditional department store.
A Post-Department-Store Model Emerges
By reviving the windows under a landlord-led model, Cadillac Fairview is testing a new approach to legacy retail real estate. Rather than tying the façade to a single retailer, the windows are being repositioned as a flexible platform for brands, cultural organizations, and charities.
For Holiday 2025, a single major brand secured the Yonge Street run, while other sides of the building remain available or partially committed. The leasing model treats each window bay as a premium experiential unit, sold individually or in sequences, similar to high-impact out-of-home media.
The Mars activation runs from December 14 through January 2, operating 24 hours a day throughout the holiday season. Beyond that, Cadillac Fairview has signaled that the program is intended to continue year-round, with rotating campaigns that blend retail, culture, and civic storytelling.
🎄 “OMG I literally texted my whole mom group twice this morning — these Hudson’s Bay windows are STUNNING 🤩!!! Somehow Mars turned candy and elves into pure holiday magic. I haven’t been this excited since I found the last pumpkin pie in the Costco warehouse at thanksgiving🍬👩👧👦 — stunning, fabulous, incredible, amazing… you get the idea. Thank you for saving this tradition! 😭✨”