The shopping wasn't what brought Norm and Peggy Brooks of Scott City to downtown Cape Girardeau Friday afternoon.

Instead, they wanted to introduce the next generation of their family to a local Christmas tradition. With their 2-year-old granddaughter, Elise Kendrick, they made a trip to Hutson's Fine Furniture to see the store's locally famous and much-anticipated Christmas window display.

The Brooks family makes sure to see the display almost every year between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Hutson's store window has become a Christmas tradition for the Brookses, like it has for many other local families. They can be seen standing in front of the store just about any day during the holiday season.

For the Brooks family, the surprise keeps them coming back.

"It changes every year quite a bit," Norm Brooks said. "You never know what to expect."

This year's display impressed young Elise, as it did her grandparents. The theme is one resurrected from a few years back -- a massive train set winding through an old West frontier town. Three trains of varying lengths run through mountain tunnels, over old iron bridges and around rocky hills and evergreens.

Small, detailed characters populate the mountain town, while deer populate the hills. Santa flies over the entire scene in a strange half-sled/half-prop plane vehicle, a Hutson's flag tailing behind. The largest train in the group runs about 30 miles each day.

A painting depicting Cape Girardeau's downtown buildings covered in snow runs the length of the display underneath the mining town.

Hutson's co-owner Chris Hutson said the scene is modeled after an actual Rocky Mountain town, Silverton, Colo., where his father used to take him and his brother Dave when they were children.

For the Hutsons, each Christmas display they create brings back childhood memories.

"When we were little children it was an adventure for us to come down and see the display each year," Hutson said.

The Hutsons put up a train display just a few years ago. They brought the trains back so soon due to popular demand, Hutson said.

"This is the only one we have done more than one time," he said.

In past years the window has been host to scenes depicting the Red House, the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge with moving car traffic and the Glenn House. But people love the trains, Hutson said.

The Brookses say they have no favorites -- each display has its own appeal.

That kind of enthusiasm has turned the Hutson's display into a holiday tradition for many people.

Longtime Hutson's employee Venita Daniel has seen families like the Brookses year after year.

"I have people tell me their grandparents used to bring them, and now they're bringing their grandchildren," said Daniel.

Each year locals anticipate the unveiling of the display Thanksgiving night after the creation has been covered for weeks.

"We really do try to keep it secret until it's unveiled," said Hutson. He jokes that when someone asks him to reveal the secret, as they inevitably do, his answer is always the same: "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

This year the Hutson family began work on the mining town at the beginning of October. They stayed at the store until 3:30 a.m. Thursday toiling to make the display ready for the many people who stop by after Thanksgiving dinner.

But the family says making the display is worth all the effort when they see the people stop outside just to look at their creation.

Hutson describes the experience as "humbling."

"It just makes you feel good," he said.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182