Day 4 doesn't prove to be as exciting as I had anticipated.

I hadn't been to this mall since my life before children. And what I remembered about it was that it was a classy place where everything is way over-priced but that always goes way overboard with Christmas decorations. What I didn't remember from my pre-children days is that there is nothing there for kids save for some Webkinz at the Justice store.

There were indeed some decorations, but there was nothing extraordinary about them. Must be the economy. And Santa was there. We spied him from a staircase. "Look, Audrey!" I exclaimed. "Santa followed us here from our mall!" She was very happy.

And I did get to photograph a couple of the kids in front of a Rolls that costs more than my house. If I had had a pen and paper handy, I would have posted a note on the car that read:

Did you know that for the cost of this car,
you can buy a kitchen, a couple living rooms,
some bedrooms, a few toilets, a garage,
a backyard, and a pool?
If interested, call ---

And I was going to take the kids into the Versace store so we could roll our eyes over the price tags and make fun of people who would drop a couple thousand on a button-down shirt, but when we got to the entrance, the staunch, haughty-looking sales guy scared me away. Not literally, of course. He just looked like he might not welcome 4 children running through his store, wiping their chinese food-stained fingers all over the merchandise. Not to mention he probably wouldn't have welcomed my photographing a few price tags.

So we left. Not a particularly wonderful advent activity, but we did it as a family nonethless.