I Spy Christmas in July

We loved the "I Spy" series of books in our house when we were growing up.  One of my absolute favourites is the "I Spy Christmas" book.  This was a book that was pulled off the shelf, time and time again, to find the items listed in the rhyme, or to make up our own and search endlessly for them.

Walter Wick, created the series and here is a page from this beloved book:

On his website he states:

I Spy Christmas is the second book in the I Spy series and still one of my favorites. For this photograph, I found an old window that was just the right size to fit the page. Some of the dolls are my wife's childhood toys. Others were borrowed from neighbors. I dressed the set like an old toy shop window. The snow and frost is of the type sold in Christmas shops.

His images are magical, a glimpse into childhood memories. He has created the perfect scenes, this shop window for example, is the Christmas window that you want to press your frosty nose and mittened hands to, staring at everything inside, with so many choices that you are not sure what you are going to put down on your list to ask Santa Claus for.

Here are the before and after images for the window scene that was described above:

At home there are always Christmas in July sales, parties, little get-to-gethers. I love Christmas, in fact I have been listening to Christmas music a lot lately on a fabulous online radio station I found and as crazy as it seems, listening to that music, made me sew up the rest of my bear and bunny order, even faster.  The more I seemed to sing and hum to those jolly jingles, the more time just seemed to fly by along with my fingers....

(All images are copyright Walter Wick)