Christmastime is Here—Already!?!

Sarah needed to get some work done at the house this morning, so Nicholas and I took a ride to a big mall about a 25-minute ride away so that she could do that, and because it made my life much easier in the mall.  At our local mall, I can do two to three laps of each of its four levels in about an hour.  That's a lot of repetition and elevators to keep from getting bored.  At the giant mall, I did two laps of its entire single level in an hour, which was much nicer.

And as the post title indicates, Christmas season is already alive and well in retail; the music piped over the loudspeakers, the decorations, it's all there.  We had a good time, and even got to see some snow!  (They had a snow machine in one part of the mall).  We had stopped to rest for a minute because I was carrying Nicholas and pushing the stroller, and were looking at a Christmas tree made entirely of Legos.  When the snow machine started we were already walking away, but I turned back so he could see it, and he loved looking at it (it was just bubbles).  When he first saw "snow," a big grin came across his face, and he was transfixed for several minutes before we moved on.

... At which point Nicholas met Santa Claus!  He was completely nonplussed (Nicholas; Santa was very pleasant).  He mostly seemed confused as to why someone would dress like that, but I explained that in a few years Santa would be a very important person in his life.  Still no reaction.  Maybe next year.

Now, I also had a few other comments about the mall, since one can only discuss so much with a five-month-old, however smart he may be:

• This mall has a brand-new Lego store, which I wandered into because it was bright and fun, and I figured Nicholas would enjoy looking around.  Social comment?  The only shoppers in the store were all male, including one other father with a toddler son.  Go figure.
• Speaking of Legos, it looks like it's going to be difficult to get Nicholas just a set of Legos (as opposed to a set to build a castle/military base/fire station/spaceship) unless we buy used.  Oh well.
• From the Back-to-Retail-School Department: the kiosk workers are annoying generally, but the guy who approached me (while carrying Nicholas and pushing the stroller) by saying, "Sir, gimme your glasses for a minute" gets a special prize for stupidity.
• Nicholas likes going fast in the stroller, which discovery mid-walk I used to great effect around kiosks that seemed like they might target me.  We paced nice and slowly past the women's face cream and battery-operated cigarette stands.  Everything else got a "here we go!" and a giggly baby blur.
• I feel really bad for people who work in retail at this mall.  I used to think it was crazy that stores insisted on opening at 5am on the Friday after Thanksgiving for sales.  This mall is opening at 11 on Thanksgiving night!  How cruel by the corporate honchos who made the decision that a bunch of poor workers have to watch their families go to bed after Thanksgiving dinner while they head out the door to work.
• Of course, given what most families are like these days, the workers will probably just get a ride to the mall with their addled consumerist relatives looking for a steal on a Lego spaceship set.
• Honestly, the Christmas theme was pretty half-assed.  The stores are totally not ready to go yet, which made the random Christmas music and scattered decorations in the mall seem totally out of place.  And Santa already in place two weeks before Thanksgiving just seems early to me.  At some point we'll hit a limit, right?  Or are we eventually going to start having Santa hang out at the mall starting the week after Easter?

That's about it.  Now I'll go back to hoping he'll take his full nap, and trying to sneak in some work in the meantime.