Community Chat

[chrystaltree]

Where do you live that you see people out in public in PJs?  It's not something zi have ever seen.  I'm 63 and Christmas shopping in malls and downtown steas was always a total nightmare.  He lines were long, there were crowds, the poor sales people were incredibly busy.  Many were temps for the season and knew nothing about the store or the merchandise.  They were there to ring up sales.  Yes.  There was free store wrapping but that meant standing in another extremely long line.  I remember schlepping from store to store with tons of shopping bags.  Something through icy slush.  Sometimes in frigid weather bundled up like the Michelin man.  At the time, it was all we had and everything was so festive.  It was exhausting but fun.  There were no other options.  But I am glad it's over!  I'm thrilled that old school shopping in brick and mortar stores is in my rear view mirror.  Thank heavens shopping channels, Amazon and online shopping.  I like that I can make my shopping list and buy what is on my list.  I'm not relegated to what the stores are selling.  It's nice now.  When I go out, it's to people watch and to look at the lights and window shop.  It's relaxed and fun because I'm not shopping.  

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[Steffdoggy10]

Great post, brings back good memories!
Customer service has definitely declined.
No fun people watching nowadays. People in pajama bottoms or black leggings. Boring. No individuality

[Enufstuff]

  Back in the 50's, 60's and 70's I loved shopping in our downtown stores at Christmas time. We had two beautiful department stores, womens clothing stores, men's clothing stores, two shoe stores, two toy stores, three jewelry stores, three furniture stores , two candy shops and four five and ten stores and a few nice restaurants.

  I remember when they built a new Woolworth's and it had an

escalator, the first "modern" store downtown.

  The street lights had decorations for Christmas and all the store front windows were beautifully decorated. The department stores had very elaborate decorations inside the stores, just lovely.

  It seems that people, shoppers and store clerks were all in the Christmas spirit. People seemed happy to greet and help each other. It really did seem to be "The most wonderful time of the year". People were more respectful and polite back then.

  I loved shopping for Christmas, with the little bit of money that I saved as a preteen or teenager. Some nice things could be purchased for just a couple of dollars, even in the department stores. They would wrap gifts for no charge, if you spent $4.00. As a young teen, I thought that job would be so much fun in gift wrap. I loved wrapping gifts.

 Unfortunately, those downtown stores could not compete with the malls near us and one by one the stores closed.

 My three daughters are in their 50's and remember some of those stores and how nice our downtown was.

[jackiejenny]

My lifelong love of shopping began with not my Mom, but with my Aunt...her sister. 

For being sisters, they were polar opposites when it came to shopping. Mom took you shopping when you needed something, but my Aunt took you for the experience. 

My first taste of shopping as an experience was in Columbus, Ohio in a store called Lazurus, now Macy's. 

Since I learned from an early age there were two entirely different ways of shopping, I will always be grateful to my Aunt for intiating me in the art of shopping as a fun, educational, sometimes euphoric EXPERIENCE. 

I think~~~

[781Florist]

I loved shopping at Christmas time.  I loved going to the mall, but my favorite experiences were going to the beautiful urban downtown department stores.  They were so lavishly decorated and the scents and displays were just wonderful.

In Boston, we had Jordan Marsh, Filene's, Gilchrist, Bond Clothiers, R.H. Stearns, an 8 floor Woolworths that had 4 restaurants and many unique smaller jewelers and boutiques interspersed among them.  Brigham's (to this very day the best vanilla ice cream in the solar system) and Bailey's Ice Cream shops were where you went for a treat.

I was especially able to enjoy Christmas shopping because my paper route had 64 houses on my route.

I can remember my tips reaching $160.00 at Christmas in 1967.  I just looked it up and in today's money that is 

$1,443.00!!!

You can get great gifts with that kind of purchasing power!

I do occasionally shop at Macy's, but I still resent them because they represent the forces that led to the end of all the distinctly local department store giants.

Marshall Field, Kaufmans, Jordan Marsh, Filene's, Bon Marche, Hudson's, and many other wonderful stores that represented the unique personality of their cities were swallowed up and turned into the generic Macy stores that exist today.

I am grateful that I lived in a time when I could experience places like that.  I also have lived to see the age of online shopping.  I utilize it and enjoy and appreciate it's convenience, but years from now I will never look back on my keyboard tapping in 2023 with anything like the warm memories of those 60s and 70s Christmas shopping trips.

[PABoater]

Saks is still a great store! I miss L&T and many of the other great higher-end department stores!!! 

[jackiejenny]

@781Florist   I understand your resentment towards Macy's because that is the same reason I resented WalMart for many years and refused to shop there. 

I resented them for wanting to wipe all Mom and Pop stores off of the face of the map. 

Of course, this was long before Amazon and I am over it now...kind of...sort of...

[Puzzle Piece]

I recall the courtsies the stores would extend.  

Looks like people are treated like cattle today. 

[AngelPuppy1]

I forgot about the pay toilets!  Seem so archaic now thinking about that!  If I remember correctly, it was $.10 when I occasionally had to use them.  I remember thinking at the time - what if you really had to go and you had no change on you???  Yikes!!!!  Back in the days when we had no cell phones -- and we survived perfectly fine.  When I was older and pay phones and phone booths were all over the place, we never gave it any thought.  If it was necessary to make a call, we just used them -- we have our dimes and quarters ready!