By Lauren Otis, Business Editor
And the downtown holiday window display winners are … nobody.
Yes, that’s right. For the first time in decades, the Borough Merchants for Princeton will not be declaring winners in its traditional annual holiday window display contest.
Although plenty of merchants downtown have still festooned their store windows with lights and glitter and other seasonal holiday trimmings, the passing of the contest was bemoaned by some merchants.
It’s demise came amid rumblings, depending on one’s perspective, that a certain select group were perennial winners and no one else had a chance, or that only a select few merchants made the effort to decorate year after year while the rest just rode on their laurels, and so deserved the accolades year after year.
Kathie Morolda, owner of Cranbury Station Gallery on Palmer Square and president of the Borough Merchants for Princeton, said that this year the all-volunteer association was overtaxed by the effort and expense of designing a series of holiday banners, getting borough approval for them, and installing several dozen of them all around downtown Princeton.
Ms. Morolda said the focus on the banners resulted in neglecting the window contest this year, but she hopes the window contest will be back next year.
She acknowledged “the perception that some people won every year,” but noted that “the reality was that those people were doing a fabulous job on their stores” each holiday season. Even so, a break in the annual event might present a good opportunity to rethink it and encourage broader participation, she said.
”Sometimes you have to give something a rest and then we’ll rethink it and come up with something so it will be even better,” Ms. Morolda said.
Ms. Morolda said the borough merchants association is talking with Morven Museum about participating in some fashion in its planned celebration of the Continental Congress meeting in Princeton in 1783, and a holiday window display contest next year might be incorporated.
”We want to stick to a theme of it truly being an old-fashioned traditional celebration in Princeton,” she said.
William Howard, chief executive officer of Triangle Repro Center on Nassau Street, a past winner, called the demise of the contest “a shame.” He said that the rise of big chain stores in downtown Princeton has been a problem for the holiday window contest. “They refuse to participate, then the small merchants wonder why are they doing all the work” with the chains reaping the benefit of a festive downtown, he said.
”I’d love to see it come back,” Mr. Howard said of the contest. “We just need more merchants to get involved in the merchants organization.”
Marilyn Stevens, owner of Go for Baroque on Nassau Street — a perennial winner of the contest — and a member of the board of directors of the Borough Merchants for Princeton, said she did pay particular care to her window displays each winter, but the point of the contest was to encourage camaraderie among downtown shopkeepers and increase shopping downtown, not elevate one shop owner over another.
”The point of the contest wasn’t to give a prize out … it was simply a recognition. It was to encourage all the merchants in town to participate and decorate in order to bring visitors and shoppers, to the town, to downtown,” Ms. Stevens said.
Ms. Stevens said she will continue to decorate her windows for the holidays and other seasons because it brings in business. “What customers say to us is ‘we enjoy seeing your windows’ or ‘we saw something in your window that drew us in,’” she said.
She said she was all for continuing the window contest as a fun event, which promoted camaraderie among downtown merchants.
Said Ms. Morolda of reinstating the contest: “I don’t know how we are going to do it next year, but we’ll figure it out.”
Shoppers, at least, can still benefit from a seasonally picturesque downtown Princeton. Even without a contest, “everybody who has always decorated their windows looks like they’ve done it this year,” said Mr. Howard, “and they’ve done a hell of a job.”

