Sunday, December 19, 2010

a magical time of year

Pity poor Santa. Time was, when he came to visit, he was put up in a splendid grotto. Maybe a castle or a gingerbread house. It would be festooned with decorations. (don't you love that word "festooned"? you rarely get a chance to use it nowadays), there would often be a white picket fence beside the path you had to walk along to get inside his grotto. There would be elves to help you and to hand out candy canes. Long after I stopped believing in Santa Claus, we would make the rounds of the malls to visit his grottos (and maybe embarrass an elf or two into giving us candy canes just to go away...). There was a friendly competition among the various malls into providing the most fanciful, most original grotto for this most honoured guest. It was a spectacle you looked forward to seeing.

Now, he doesn't even seem to have a dwelling at all. His massive chair has been reduced to a bench with a bit of green behind him. Nothing special, or magical, or even noteworthy. After getting your picture taken with Santa, the rest is photo shopped in. Like 'magic 'you can have your image in front of a small ramshackled house with a crooked wooden sign saying "North Pole", or out in a snow covered wood, or in front of the massive tree in the mall. That is hardly memorable years later when you look on the old tattered photo. Santa's lair simply cannot compete with a Swarovski laden 35' tree.


Especially when they dim the lights and it begins to snow! Inside the mall! Every night at 7pm, a crowd gathers around the tree, the snow fairy appears and the lights dim. "Let it Snow" softly starts wafting through the speakers, and from the high ceiling of the Eaton Centre, bubbly snow falls and drifts... it is magical.

14 comments:

  1. That tree is awesome!!! And you are so right! It is a magical time of year!
    Hugs
    SueAnn

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  2. Photoshopping in Santa's Grotto!! AAAArrrgghhh!! I don't "do" Christmas, but I love some of the traditions and do like going and seeing Christmas displays, and the children queueing up to see Santa. All the magic is gone without the festooned (yes it's a lovely word) grotto! I think those children will be the poorer for it!

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  3. SueAnn: the tree is definitely the tallest and densest tree I've ever seen. there is something like 20,000 Swarovski crystals glinting on it.

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  4. Sian: I know - it is a sacrilege. how can one treasure fond memories of visiting Santa if the picture shows you in a place you never were. it is wrong on so many levels.

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  5. Interesting how technology has effected the "how" of things. Santa's setting is photoshopped in, no doubt saving money spent on storage, maintenance, set up, tear down, replacement, etc. I agree with you; the memory would not match up with the picture.

    And now we have elaborate trees that are snowed upon inside a Mall. Whatever happened to decorated trees outside and real snow in climates that actually produce snow? Probably the same money saving reasoning is at work here. So now the tree simple the snow is simply turned on and off.

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  6. Annie: nice to see you! we do have [some] snow here and there is a large decorated tree put up at City Hall which is right next door to this mall. it is rather cool to have the snow falling inside, though!
    and your theory about saving money is a gppd point but, there is still all the other decorations that must be put up and taken down and stored, so s proper grotto would not add too much to the work.

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  7. Virtual magic is no way as good as actual physical magic. Photoshop is killing the magic. That tree is nice and having snow in the middle of the mall would be so cool in a hot place like Malaysia but don't you Canadians get enough of the real stuff?

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  8. Wow, snow inside the mall! How decadent! Our little mall isn't nearly so fancy, but at least they've provided Santa with a nice big kingdom surrounded by huge snowmen. Most importantly, he's a very nice man who actually seems happy to be there. After hundreds of kids day after day! Now, THAT's magical!

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  9. That's crazy about the photoshop Christmas pics. I don't go to the mall, so I did not know about this. That tree is pretty, though! Nice.

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  10. LGS: actually we have very little snow in Toronto and the stuff in the mall was great as the bubbles dissolved right away (no shovelling, but lots of wiping the counters for the Swatch kiosk nearby!!)

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  11. lizziviggi: Hello! How very true - it cannot be an easy job, being a smiling Santa.

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  12. Geewits: I don't do malls very often either... (I really only went inside here to see the tree) so I don't know if this is the first year for the photoshopping or not. Maybe so, judging by the other comments.

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  13. what kind of snow fell inside? In Singapore, they use soap bubbles.

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  14. Ann: yes, these looked like little dishwashing soap bubbles. someone near me was tasting them, but there was no flavour (thank goodness)

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