It seems like the only thing holidays are good for anymore is sales and marketing. Holiday sales drive people to literally trample one another to death in their clamor for deals, and holiday marketing gets pushed to a whole new degree — some stores have floats in holiday parades, others pretend to care about charitable causes.

Some businesses get fun with it and create amazing light shows and window displays for the consumer to enjoy while he or she tries to figure out what meaningless, transient product he can buy to prove that he still loves grandma, or is at least still feeling obligated. Here are five holiday displays that push marketing to a new degree.

Macy’s

Macy’s has incredible window displays year-round, but the holidays really bring out their creative side. Christmas brings about elves and reindeer working on Christmas presents, snowy trees, workshops full of wooden toys, and winter scenes dotted by penguins and polar bears; they even recently featured the long-haired flying dog creature from A Neverending Story in one of their windows.

The Macy’s in New York isn’t the only store that creates these elaborate, life-sized dioramas; Macy’s stores throughout the country can all be found thinking up scenes that are all different from one another. Although the displays aren’t shoving any products in your face, they utilize a more subtle tatics probably learned from a marketing degree. These displays create a warm and inviting environment, encouraging people to come inside to see what other interesting and attractive things may lie.

Bloomingdale’s

Bloomingdale’s is much like Macy’s with their elaborate displays. The incredible amount of time, effort, and cash poured into these displays really bring marketing to a whole new degree, especially because these windows don’t contain anything you can actually buy. They’re simply there to please the eye — which is a giant part of marketing, however. In 2007, Bloomingdale’s teamed up with the Children’s Museum of Manhattan and the Children’s Museum of the Arts to create their displays. They actually asked the kids to draw, paint, and sculpt what they would like to see in the windows.

Then, Bloomingdale’s creative team took the best ones and used them to create truly interesting and one-of-a-kind displays. It was nothing like the same old Santa-eating-cookies stuff we usually get. And hey, they even threw in that whole pretending-to-care-about-the-community marketing method with the whole museum collaboration.

Sak’s

Sak’s is another behemoth known for creating fantastical holiday window displays that are a whole new degree of awesome, possibly even apart from all the others on this list. Their marketing team really knows what works for the store, because every display is very in-tune with the store’s brand and personality. Just like their promotion of luxury and living a ‘fantasy lifestyle’, their window displays tend to contain magical or fantastical imagery. Even the elves and fairies, who are already magical creatures, are especially sparkly and other-worldly in the windows of Sak’s.

Tiffany’s

The holiday window displays at Tiffany’s are, unlike the others on this list, pretty direct with their marketing. In fact, their products are often somehow incorporated into the display itself. Not necessarily taking it to a whole new degree there, but they manage to pull it off pretty well. This image shows a Tiffany’s Christmas display with a Tiffany’s necklace featured as it’s center piece.

One end of the necklace hangs from the bird’s mouth and into the sky like a string of magical stars. It’s easy to picture girls walking by the window and saying, “Oh my gawd it’s, like, totally magical! I want the magical thing!” pretty much over and over until daddy or hubby gets tired of rolling his eyes and sneaks out during dinner to buy one.

Tommy Hilfiger/Fendi

Tommy Hilfiger and Fendi are two neighboring stores who teamed up together to create a truly mind blowing light display. The entire building was wrapped in dripping icicle lights and topped off with a huge bow, making it look like one gigantic present. This takes lighting to a whole new degree — they must have spend over a thousand dollars on the materials alone.

This type of marketing degree use is subtle in the way that it makes people look at the lights and store without feeling like they’re being sold anything — which is exactly the goal. People see these lights and think of ‘holiday cheer’, and feel warmer towards those who are being particularly festive about it — i.e. Tommy Hilfiger and Fendi.

There are a lot of great ways to subconsciously put your brand’s name in the minds of others — and often, it doesn’t involve deals or your product. Instead, people like to buy from places they feel like they can relate to and are invited inside of. During holiday shopping, shoppers are more likely to shop for the holidays in a store that looks like they’re prepared for the holidays. This means that these stores are drawing people in merely from the degree they took decorating to.