Christmas has gone wild!

After a day of much deserved pampering by my aesthetician and physical therapist, it dawned on me that tomorrow is St. Nicholas Day and St. Nicholas (that would be me) had not bought a single surprise for the kids.

St. Nicholas is a big day in Europe, even more important than Christmas Day itself. Here there are really skinny Santas giving out candy at the malls, but no pictures with Santa at the mall (that will come soon enough when someone wises up to the profitability of it all). I would be a really bad mommy if I ignored this altogether and I have a feeling that for the rest of their lives my children will be expecting something in their stocking on December 6.

I was pressed for time since I had to pick the kids up from school at 4:30. So I raced to the nearest mall, the Sadyba "Best" Mall, which really does not deserve that name. That was my second mistake, the first being waiting until today to get this together. But, can you blame me? I mean amid all this packing it's a miracle that I even remembered.

Sadyba Mall is the worst mall in all of Warsaw in addition to being the smallest. I knew I was in for it when I went into the underground parking garage to find it nearly full. That's always a bad sign here.

I headed to Smyk and I felt like I had been transported to another universe. In the 2 years I have been here, I have never seen the mountains of toys at exorbitant prices that I saw today. Our first Christmas here, I could barely find any selection. Today, it was overwhelming. And let's not forget all the people doing exactly what I was doing. The lines were ridiculously long and they only had 2 cashiers who were taking their sweet time ringing up customers.

It was not like this 2 years ago. Two years ago I got the impression that Christmas here took on a more sacred meaning. I'm sure that for some this still holds true. But consumerism in Poland appears to be at an all time high. People don't pay their bills (I don't know if they quite understand that this is part of the agreement). I have heard stories of people being put in jail for not paying their bills. It is sad to think of it.

This is why, I sometimes feel that I am reliving the 80's here. In the 80's (and the 70's too) it was all about "me, me, me". It's almost as if they had an 80's do over. Who can blame them when you think about their 80's compared to ours? I ended up getting each child one small European toy and some Kinder Eggs.