TORONTO — One of Toronto’s busiest shopping corridors came alive Sunday with elves that operated conveyor belts laden with Mars bars, celebrated the clock hitting midnight with a blast of Skittles and frolicked and fished in a winter wonderland.

The curios along the Yonge Street side of Hudson’s Bay’s former flagship took over a spot the department store’s sister firm Saks Fifth Avenue usually reserved for mannequins bedecked with chic holiday outfits. They are around the corner from the Queen Street windows HBC festooned for Christmas for as long as people can remember.

This year’s scenes are confectionary company Mars Canada’s way to ensure a time-honoured tradition does not fade away with Hudson’s Bay. The retailer known as Canada’s oldest company collapsed in early-spring and shuttered all of its stores by June, leaving Toronto poised to go without its famed holiday windows.

Mars decided to save the city from that fate after general manager Ellen Thompson’s team wandered past the empty windows on their way to dinner.

“For the next 20 to 30 minutes, all everyone could talk about was how sad they were that the holiday tradition wouldn’t be returning,” she said.

“We started looking things up and seeing that there were so many people on social media that were talking about how much they were going to miss the windows and we thought to ourselves we can do something about this.”

Within the span of a month, Mars had not only taken advantage of landlord Cadillac Fairview’s move to rent out its windows to advertisers like Sinai Health and the Aga Khan Museum but had also procured animatronics, lights and plenty of other creative doodads.

“It was a pretty bold ambition in a very short period of time,” Thompson said.

The final product, which runs until Jan. 2, is dubbed Wonders of Mars. It turns seven windows into scenes depicting a day in the life of the company’s elves.

The first window opens up on the whimsical creatures starting their day amid a rosy sunrise. Bubble gum spheres filled with supplies will bob around elves that appear to slide down ribbons of unspooled Hubba Bubba tape.

Then, the action moves to a Mars factory where chocolate is pumped through pipes and elves work levers to assemble it into bars.

Other scenes see the elves sledding, ice fishing and battling it out in a snowball fight before baking a fresh batch of M&M-packed cookies.

The experience ends with panes inviting viewers to submit their holiday lists. For each submitted, Mars will donate $1 to Food Banks Canada, maxing out at $15,000.