Our regional shopping mall here in Bellingham, Washington, dating from the late 1980s, recently had a grand re-opening showing off its multi-hundred thousand dollar face lift.

I didn’t attend. I’ve got nothing against shopping malls. It’s just that I can’t stand them. I’m glad I grew up in a time when the acres of asphalt and lookalike big box buildings–spreading over former farm fields–weren’t the main association with Christmas. That, and all the flimsy junk on sale inside, passing as gifts for kids and necessities of modern life.

Not so long ago, Christmas commercial activity was still more about Main Streets in towns and cities. Like many such places, our own “downtown” in Northeast New Jersey had taken nearly three centuries to evolve. True, by the early 1950s, these districts had absorbed the trappings of a commercialized, electrified post-war modern Christmas season. Housewares and toys featured in the Five and…