Merry christmas and happy everything else!

Just a quick random post today -- it's always nice to something holiday-related at this time of year, and I have a bunch of pictures that don't fit into anything else, or won't otherwise be posted for a long time! Also, those of you on Discord have already seen most of these photos, but I don't like to exclusively post things there since it's something that could disappear at any time without any way to archive posts, but that's a discussion for another day.

Anyway, our first stop is the flagship downtown Nordstrom, which I've already posted extensively about holiday decorations at -- but this year they added a whole extra Santa setup that was missing last year (probably due to COVID), which is quite elaborate! (I suspect that it was cancelled at the last minute last year, because Street View shows the entire set in place, but unused.) I like the towers of 3D papercraft objects! 

They even built a dedicated addition on the sidewalk to hold the line for photos -- and it was almost full the day I walked by! This is a long-running tradition for Nordstrom, but it's been gone for the last couple years due to COVID, and I don't remember seeing it in the years before that either, when the store was getting major renovations. This has to be a huge investment for them -- even the permitting alone probably runs into the thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars to effectively rent the space from the city. 

A block away, the traditional Bon Marche star still graces its historic building, along with the Macy's sign for some reason. When Macy's announced they were closing this store, there was talk that the star would get rebuilt in a techy, color-changing way, but (thankfully) that doesn't seem to have ever happened. Meanwhile, the street-level retail space finally has its first new tenant, Uniqlo, which seems to have taken over about a third of the Macy's salesfloor; sadly, even though the space was supposed to be historically protected, Uniqlo managed to completely wipe away any traces of Macy's/the Bon Marche from their space, and their store is extremely boring to the point that I have no interest in photographing it anytime soon. 

Next up (for the second and last destination of this post -- I wanted to get a few more photos, but the weather has been quite cold and snowy the last two days so I've been staying home instead) is the Southcenter Mall, which, being one of the best malls around here, always puts on a good show. The big red bow on part of the food court facade is something I've seen here before, but the white trees are new and different! 

Of course, the main point of this visit was to check out Sears, which was certainly less dead than when I've visited it at normal times, but compared to the packed rest of the mall, still felt pretty dead. But at least they managed to decorate this year! It isn't all that much, but it's far better than what JCPenney did, which is a pretty damning indictment of JCPenney's attempt, or lack thereof. Sure, the artificial wreaths look like something you could buy at the dollar store, but this is Sears, so I have to give them points for trying -- and it's also vastly better than 2021 (one cheap artificial tree) or 2018 (absolutely nothing). But it's still sad going through those photos, seeing how in 2018 this store managed to fill three levels with merchandise, and just last year it still had two comfortably full floors, compared to the very empty conditions I saw last weekend.

Is it just me, or does that red gradient-y "big weekend sale" sign look rather Kmart-y?

At least the clothing department was significantly more full than upstairs, but that's because all of the remaining clothing from the second level has been moved downstairs in recent years.

 

 

The decorations in the rest of the mall are pretty much the same as in years past, not that that's a bad thing, considering the level of effort this mall puts into holiday decorations!

And that's a wrap for 2022! I'll be back from my break at the start of January; in the meantime, I hope you all have an enjoyable and safe end of the year!