Thoughts From the Mall on the Weekend Before Christmas
Or, Am I Just Old?
Dispatches from the mall on the last Saturday before Christmas. It’s been a while since I spent time at the mall. Here’s what I saw.
I came across a whole crew (gaggle, flock, gang) of honest to goodness, throwback goths at the mall, just hanging around the food court. Old school. Face painted white, with little black stars around the eyes and black lipstick. Platform, low heeled boots. Long black trench coats. One had an all black, battle vest with a bunch of patches. I recognized The Cure and My Chemical Romance. The latter is more Emo, but whatever.
There’s always been a lot of similarity in my mind between metal kids and goth kids so I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the aestetic. And this crew appeared to be straight out of the Velvet Underground / Siouxsie and The Banshees time machine. Not a hint of the modern Tik-Tok vampire nonsense.
Anyway, I considered asking them to pose for picture but if they said yes, then they’d lose all authenticity in my view and I didn’t want to risk it.
Around the corner at one of those pop up holiday shops, I stumbled upon both a shelf of the Krampus horned Santa hats AND an electronic display of reindeers with a sign that cheerfull read, “Please do not touch Dasher and Dancer.” Kids were taking their pics in front of them.
The reindeer seemed pretty normal but I hadn’t seen any holiday items pertaining to the Krampus around here and that jumped out at me, in a good way! So the hats were typical Santa hats, but outfitted with a set of the long, gnarly curled horns of the Krampus. What a delight!
In more modern horror story telling, the Krampus would literally drag off and eat misbehaving children. His original origin story is more benign. He and Saint Nicholas would go out and visit childrens’ homes together. St. Nick would reward well behaved kids with gifts. The badly behaved ones, well, they wouldn’t get eaten, don’t worry. The Krampus would just whip them with a birch rod.
So who wants to be the Krampus for Christmas!
Finally, I made a quick pit-stop at Spencer’s Gifts, figuring I’d check out the band tees for Little Bean. Its been decades since I’ve been inside one of those.
Quick question… were they always, you know, like that? When I was hanging out in Spencer’s Gifts when I was a teenager, were they, um, like THAT?
Not to be all ‘get off my lawn’ but wow, that’s an explicit store. Either I don’t recall them being like that or as a teen I didn’t care. I mean, I guess I don’t care that much now, but let’s just say I didn’t find any t-shrts for her!
How about you all? Where does the mall fit into your history? Nostalgic or can do without it? I know for sure, that I miss the arcade!
There weren't any shopping malls in my area when I was growing up, so no nostalgia there. As an adult, I used to do quite a bit of shopping in the mall department stores. I mostly shop online now. I can't remember the last time I was in a shopping mall. I don't miss them at all.
The mall is a "can do without" for me. Only thing I would miss is Bath & Body Works, specifically the semi-annual sales.