A Very Kitschy Christmas
For more than thirty years, an unassuming lawn decor store in Northern New Jersey captivated locals with an absurd Christmas display of jerky animatronics, world-traveling Santas, and Italian American motifs.
Many parts of New Jersey are still frozen in time, the dial set firmly to the halcyon days of post-WWII. Maybe it’s the diner culture, dated infrastructure, or Frankie Valli’s legacy, but the state has long been a Boomer fantasyland. Even well into the 21st century, it’s commonplace to eat at “Hot Dog Johnny” or scare your children with the plaster gnomes inside Fairy Tale Forest. It is this enduring spirit of kitsch and penchant for mid century iconography that transformed a Northern New Jersey garden store into a cult icon. For decades, Fountains of Wayne attracted locals with eclectic lawn statues, but it was their off-season merchandise that made them famous. To boost sales during winter, the store owners used an ingenious marketing tactic: a massive homemade Christmas display that acted out the many adventures of Santa Claus with creepy vintage dolls and animatronics.
Describing Fountains of Wayne to outsiders is a unique feat, even in the years since the Grammy-nominated band borrowed the name. To the uninitiated, Fountains of Wayne was just a mom and pop garden shop — the kind that exists in every run-of-the-mill suburban town. While it’s true that they offered decent deals on patio umbrellas and lounge chairs, their expansive selection of cement lawn art is what set them apart. The Fountains of Wayne parking lot doubled as a statue display area featuring gazebos and busts of all sizes (some equipped with internal pumps and pipes engineered to gracefully spurt water into the air). Though the store was located beside noisy Route 46, it was easy to get lost in the rows of Roman gods, painted cartoon characters, cherubs, concrete lions, and numerous renditions of Venus de Milo. To passerby, Fountains of Wayne looked more like a folk art museum than a retail store.
Donald and Joan Winters unknowingly entered the echelons of camp when they bought Fountains of Wayne in 1961. As new owners, they curated merchandise that appealed to Garden State restaurateurs looking to add parking lot opulence with light-up pagodas or a mini Fontana di Trevi. There was something for everyone, and a surprising number of homeowners frequented. Some shopped for Catholic figurines, while others landscaped their mansions in the style of Villa d’Este. Many customers fit a certain track-suited stereotype. After The Sopranos filmed at the store in 2001, the Winters family told a local newspaper that “many, many people who do for a living what the mythical Tony Soprano does for a living shop at Fountains of Wayne. We’ve been paid with a bagful of old tens and twenties.”
Come November, the Roman idols in the Fountains of Wayne parking lot were dwarfed by capitalism’s true god, a roadside statue of Santa Claus that soared over thirty feet high. The massive Santa announced the change of seasons, inviting customers to experience the store’s transformation into a makeshift ice cavern made from white tarps and cotton snow. Inside, all summer inventory was squirreled away and replaced with a blinding amount of tinsel and blinking lawn signs. Fully decorated, the property was a four-alarm fire waiting to happen but no one cared because the array of merchandise was so enchanting — especially the selection of uncommon tree ornaments. Fountains of Wayne had an entire Christmas tree showroom, each festooned with its own design scheme to promote the sale of rainbow-colored icicles, blown glass spaghetti and meatballs, and moveable snow globe ornaments.
At the center of the store, a sign urged customers to visit the seasonal pièce de résistance, a “Fabulous FREE Animated Christmas Display” on the second floor. After ascending a staircase, guests entered a dimly-lit labyrinth that looked like a mutant version of the holiday-themed “It’s a Small World” ride. Inside the exhibit, guests shuffled past different scenes crowded with stuffed animals, animatronic dolls, fake snow — and of course, fountains — that illustrated the worldly exploits of Santa Claus and his crew. The owners’ attempts to come up with new themes each year usually resulted in Santa doing a lot of international travel. The Winters lived vicariously through Mr. and Mrs. Claus as they escaped the frigid North Pole and jetted to tropical locales like Mexico or Thailand, sunglasses-wearing baby dolls in tow.
Like a joke that needs to be explained, the Christmas displays included signs to help the viewer understand each concept. In addition to acting out Santa’s travels, most of the themes showed the progression of the previous year, with labels like, “In June, Santa Performed a Wedding.” Others were more convoluted. One year, there was a scene showing Santa in his workshop surrounded by elves and tools. Though Santa is seemingly in charge, the viewer is asked to consider his potential time management struggles via an accompanying sign: “Santa said, ‘Wow! It’s almost Christmas! I’d better get back to work.’” This is one of many nonsensical vignettes, but the Fountains of Wayne imagineers also had a serious side. Each year, the tour concluded with a folksy nativity scene scattered with palm fronds and a sign that read, “We Pause to Remind You of the Real Meaning of Christmas.”
As dictated by the demographics of Northern New Jersey, Italian Americans were well represented in the Fountains of Wayne holiday extravaganza. A “Santa at Thanksgiving” scene showed a giant roasted turkey near a cornucopia of plastic grapes and artichokes. Another year, masked gondoliers and bishops danced beside papier-mâché canals to indicate a celebration of Carnevale di Venezia. Of course, the “Santa’s Pizzeria” design was included annually, with St. Nicholas and his sous chef elves mechanically loading dough into a miniature wood-fired oven positioned next to a fountain that collected quarters for charity.
Though many scenes were repeated over time, the year’s pop culture trends were always considered. When Fountains of Wayne started the Christmas display in the 1970s, disco was a popular theme. In 1978, Santa mingled with Darth Vader and R2-D2 in an intergalactic tangle of silver foliage. After the September 11 attacks of 2001, a cutesy golden retriever stuffed animal and FDNY uniform-clad dolls served as a tribute to first responders. This collection was placed in front of a pixelated backdrop of the New York City skyline reading, “WE SHALL RISE AGAIN!” in Helvetica. Fountains of Wayne felt Noël in every news headline.
The Fountains of Wayne Christmas display was replete with random storylines and distorted dolls, but locals returned year after year. Word of mouth spread, and some visitors even traveled from out of state to make Fountains of Wayne part of their family’s annual festivities. Kids were spellbound by Santa’s many sagas, and they didn’t notice the squeaking animatronics. Their parents were fascinated by the mechanics, but more importantly, they loved that the exhibit was free. Its quirky, homegrown charm appealed to all ages, even jaded college students who celebrated the end of winter finals with a tab of LSD and a visit to the winter wonderland.
A loyal cult following briefly ushered the creaky Christmas dolls into the new millennium, but even its most devoted customers couldn’t save Fountains of Wayne. Online shopping and the infiltration of megastores were its death knell. The store went bankrupt in 2009 and liquidated all assets through a court-mandated public auction. Fountains of Wayne’s fanbase paid $500 per person just to take part. One customer (a Christmas fanatic who played Santa at the Wayne Towne Center mall) reportedly bought the entire lot of animatronics for $5,000, vowing to resurrect the spirit of Christmas at nearby Fairfield Garden Center. It’s a mystery where the dolls are now, as Fairfield Garden Center also shuttered in 2019.
Now more than ten years gone, Fountains of Wayne still comes up in conversation with fellow New Jerseyites. Despite its handmade quirks, the Winters family clearly poured extensive funds into making a memorable holiday exhibit, and it actually worked. Their Christmas anachronism captivated several generations and continues to live on through memories and numerous Facebook groups. When reminiscing about Fountains of Wayne, most look past the rough edges and instead recall the passion, imagination, and logistics that made the display possible — like how the owners managed to make a perfect Chewbacca using brunette doll wigs, or how they carted Santa’s 700-pound jet ski to the second floor of the store.
