CHRISTMAS AT A DYING MALL

This Christmas season I have decided to be on the lookout for accidental decorations -- decorations that pop up where and when I least expect them.  Today's installment is the Woburn Mall.

The Woburn Mall is located in a fabulous spot.  It is easily accessible from route 93 (main artery in and out of Boston) and 128/95, the main artery into and out of the technology hot spot.  It is also adjacent to multiple industrial complexes with offices and industry, and it has two strong anchor stores with a bustling Home Goods at one end and a well-shopped Market Basket grocery store at the other.

Yet somehow this little mall cannot seem to keep itself thriving.  I don't understand it at all.

I used to go there all the time to get my fabric fix at a great store called Fabric Place.  In later years, I played trivia at Uno's restaurant with a group of gal pals.  Both places have since closed their doors.  Now I'm at the mall to shop at Home Goods (it's one of the better ones) and the comic book store.  Unfortunately, the comic book store, victim of the impending mall-demise doom, is gone without a trace.  Not even a shelving unit has been left behind.

We read some signs and ask around.  The mall is closing its doors on December 26th, the day after Christmas.  I guess the date is in order to avoid seeming like Grinches by booting the employees out BEFORE Christmas.  Yeah.  Good call (dripping sarcasm).  What's

truly strange, though, is the hopeful enthusiasm of the Christmas display, set up in the center court of the mall itself.  It's an elaborate display for a mall with so little foot traffic, and its irony is not lost of me as it sits in front of abandoned store fronts and is largely ignored by the half-dozen shoppers milling about.

It's really too bad that the floundering mall, soon-to-be-jobless employees, and hollow shops can't suck some of the life-blood from the Christmas display, especially right now in this Season of Giving and especially since someone went to a lot of work to set Christmas up in a dying mall.