Bewley’s puts Christmas back in the window on Grafton Street
Ellie Duffy (6) Swords and Robyn Dempsey (6) Lucan at Bewley’s Café, Grafton Street
Ireland’s favourite coffee and tea company, Bewley’s is setting out to create some real Christmas cheer while looking forward to a bright new year for everyone. Bewley’s Café will capture the traditional festivity of Christmas for all the family with a seasonally themed front window and upstairs exhibition of everyday Christmas scenarios by sculptor Paddy Campbell. Entitled “Little Christmas” there are six scenarios featuring 80 life-like Lilliputian figures hand-made by Campbell and dressed in contemporary style. Each realistic set depicts a scene from everyday Christmas life and each piece is an original.
Admission is free. Donations will also be accepted for Barnardos during the exhibition. The front window is currently in place with five further scenarios to follow upstairs on 8th December. The front window is already stopping passers-by in their tracks.
Matching the mood for a more traditional and family focused Christmas, Bewley’s front window and Little Christmas exhibition upstairs provide a free attraction for families and visitors to Grafton Street.
Bewley’s has specially created two special hot drinks this year – the Christmas Merry Mint Mocha and a Hazelnut Hot Chocolate to keep the cold at bay, along with a Christmas themed coffee cup to-go. Bewley’s has also launched a special Christmas Coffee Blend – available from the café and supermarkets nationwide – along with Bewley’s exclusive mince pies and Christmas cake slices.
There will be free live music at the café on Christmas Eve. With Bewley’s Café celebrating 83 years in business this year, all coffees and teas will be a recession busting 83 cents all day on Tuesday 30th November.
Little Christmas will delight young and old alike.
Paddy Campbell and Robyn Dempsey peering at one of the scenarios in Paddy Campbell’s Little Christmas Exhibition at Bewley’s
The Little Christmas exhibition follows from Paddy Campbell’s hugely popular Small World exhibition visited by over 3,000 people last July. The front window of the café will offer a voyeur’s eye view into other people’s Christmas, with a cut-out from a house showing Christmas goings-on upstairs and downstairs. Children open presents and play, friends call around, an infant is cherished, a dog barks with all the excitement, while Santa’s helpers try to wake him and get the great man back up the chimney.
In the wider exhibition upstairs in the café, bird’s eye viewers can see a Christmas Streetscape, peek behind the scenes of a 1950s Christmas themed catwalk, look in at homecoming passengers with parcels on a Christmas Train, capture moments in time during a Christmas Dinner and steal a look into a Bathroom Scene amid preparations for a Christmas party. Combined with sound effects, each scenario helps us to discover our own stories within the stories that Paddy Campbell has created for us.
Visitors are also being invited to take pictures of each scenario, from their own perspective, and to interact with the exhibition by posting pictures onto Bewley’s facebook and twitter pages at facebook.com/bewleysireland or by emailing them to bewleys.ireland@gmail.com
Bewley’s Café General Manager Paul Dwyer said: “Christmas is the most special time and we’re delighted to give something back for free to all our customers and visitors to Dublin. I think people will really like this exhibition which captures the spirit of Christmas once more on Grafton Street.”
Robyn Dempsey (in window) peering at one of the scenarios in the Little Christmas Exhibition at Bewley’s
‘Little Christmas’ by Paddy Campbell takes place in Bewley’s Café Theatre, Grafton Street, Dublin 2, from 8th December to 6th January inclusive. There are no theatre performances between these dates. Bewley’s Café Theatre is supported by the Arts Council.
