CLEVELAND — Holiday lights and tinsel have a way of stopping Leon Bibb in his tracks. For him, the season isn’t just about shopping lists or decorations — it's a doorway back to the Cleveland of his childhood, when downtown department stores were the heart of Christmas.

"Holiday shopping always gets to me — memories rushing back when I'm surrounded by the lights and tinsel of the season," Bibb says as he reflects on the sights that shaped his earliest holiday memories.

Those childhood scenes were centered on bustling family shopping trips downtown, long before malls and online stores changed the landscape.

"Today's department stores still exist — just not downtown, not the way they were decades ago. But I'm nostalgic for a time gone by," Leon adds as he stands along Euclid Avenue.

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