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This year's Christmas window displays vary between nostalgic traditional seasonal themes and colours, and the more modern, showcasing festive themes from around the globe

FOR KEVIN PENDER, head of creative design at Arnotts, Christmas 2008 began last February, just weeks after the bunting and oversized crackers had been taken down. He heads a team of nine, whose job it is to ensure the Christmas windows (the largest and oldest department-store display windows in the country) carry on a tradition that first began at the store in 1843. With 22 windows to decorate, the Arnotts Christmas display is a huge logistical operation and takes up to seven days to install.