Getting O.C. in Shopping Spirit Inspires a Mad Rush to . . . : Deck the Malls

Erich and Mary Moreno drove from Pasadena to South Coast Plaza to check out Santa’s Enchanted Village, with its mini-wooden cottages, reindeer and animated animals, but after three separate trips to the car, the couple realized the holiday trappings have another effect.

“All the decor and atmosphere makes me want to spend money,” said Erich Moreno, 72, arm around his wife.

Mall operators couldn’t have envisioned a better scenario for this, the day after Thanksgiving and the start of the most important shopping period of the year.

Many shopping center executives, department store employees and window designers have been stocking trees, velvet ornaments and gold trim for a year to gain an edge in the most crucial month for retailers.

Stores will ring up more than a third of their annual sales after Nov. 15, experts say, and consumers are increasingly demanding to be entertained while they shop.

This year, South Coast Plaza is spending about $1 million on seasonal decor, which includes a 55-foot Christmas tree with 3,000 ornaments and 65,000 white lights, twice as many as the Rockefeller Center tree in New York.

“The whole idea was to make it a family event, much like 5th Avenue in Manhattan or Union Square in San Francisco,” said Suzanne Biallot, director of marketing for South Coast Plaza.

She said South Coast Plaza hired San Francisco-based designer Barrango Inc., which crafted the Enchanted Village in the mall’s Carousel Court and Santa’s green and gold velvet chair. Barrango also created six-foot gold pine cones and cornucopias, which line planters throughout the shopping center.

Nordstrom, in keeping with an annual tradition, began decorating its stores for the December holidays after the last customer departed Wednesday night. The company’s in-house decorators led about 100 full-time and temporary workers all night to get the floors ready for the holiday season.

This year, Nordstrom’s South Coast Plaza store features a more whimsical theme than years past, with animated mice and spools of ribbon hanging from ledges along the escalators.

Veronica Forougi, cosmetic coordinator for Nordstrom’s Display Design Center in Fullerton--which serves the company’s 16 Southern California stores--says the holiday displays have been in the making since January. Along with a shipment of 450 Christmas trees and 9,000 poinsettias, more than 3,000 decorative hardwood tiles for the bases of display windows have been handmade for the various Southern California stores.

“As soon as this year’s [decorations] are done, we are pumped up for next year,” she said.

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The most profound difference this year, mall operators say, is the early jump on holiday trim. In some cases, shopping centers have put up the trees and lights in early November--two weeks before the ornaments were erected in years past.

Pat Donahue, a retail developer based in Newport Beach, says that executives simply see an opportunity to build sales by extending the holiday period.

“It’s a chance to be more entertaining in a critical time of year,” he said. “There is a risk, but I think it’s positive.”

Indeed, some shoppers said they are irked by retailers who intentionally try to force the December holidays upon them before Thanksgiving.

“I think they put up the decorations too soon,” said Cynthia Tunnell, a 34-year-old shopper from San Francisco, underneath South Coast Plaza’s massive Christmas tree. “They don’t let each holiday stand on its own.”

Brea Mall was one of the malls that got an early start. Executives, who spent $100,000 on holiday ornamentation, say that their decision to put up decorations Nov. 11 was probably a mistake.

“We might go back to the weekend before Thanksgiving next year,” said Dennis De Naut, manager of retail operations at Brea Mall. This year, the mall features seven scenes, displaying St. Nicholas at various periods throughout history.

Although the trimmings may have arrived a wee bit early, Brea Mall marketing director Darren Thomas expects this year’s sales to rise about 6% above 1994 holiday receipts.

For Georgia Francis, a 42-year-old Huntington Beach mother of six, the malls can’t bring in the holiday season soon enough. Packages hanging from her stroller, she worked South Coast Plaza’s aisles.

“As soon as I see the reindeer out,” she said, “I’m jazzed.”