I was born in the late 70's and can still remember how magical shopping felt during the 80's. The dazzle was incredible. Every store we frequented felt like its own little corner of fairy land. Sometimes we didn't even go to shop. We just went to look at the displays. And I can remember at the time, that when I grew up, I wanted to work retail. The monotony of the rest of the year would have been worth turning on the magic after Thanksgiving. But I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole now. It has no soul anymore.
A little advice, stay as far away from the chain stores as you can. IMO, the word "chain" is more appropriately used to describe not the connection of one store to all the others with the same name, but the effect it has on management. I daresay things would be a LOT more interesting if these stores were ran like franchises, and the owners could do whatever they want. But this isn't the case with big box retailers. They're all exactly the same by design. Individual stores all receive instructions on how to set up, as if every store comes out of a clone factory. There is rarely ANY creative freedom left up to the people who actually work at the stores.
However, I recommend you seek out some mom and pop shops. It's more like digging for gold these days than when you could just go anywhere and feel like you were stepping through a gate to another world, but these places are still out there. The search for them makes it all the more special when you find a store that knows how to go oldschool with Christmas.
The easiest way to find the 'veins' in this rapidly depleted resource is to make not of local pool & patio stores. Some of them still transform into marvelous Christmas displays, every bit as whimsical as the shops of yesteryear.
