By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org
There is that nostalgic Christmas image of people walking through downtown looking at the beautifully decorated store windows. But for many who were born in the late 1960s, their holiday memories and traditions centered around visiting Santa at the mall.
“I grew up in Grand Rapids,” said Cecily McCabe, who earlier this year became the Woodland Mall’s marketing manager. “So it was always a big deal to be able to come here with my family and go Christmas shopping and see all the Christmas décor. We liked to go see Santa every year. So Christmas here was a special time of year.”
In 1954, Northland Mall opened in Southfield, Mich., with a radically new concept: a regional shopping center where people could shop several different stores in one location. Seven years later, the regional shopping concept would come to the Greater Grand Rapids area with Rogers Plaza opening in Wyoming in 1961 followed by Woodland Mall in 1968. What municipality Woodland Mall’s land would be in became such a concern the residents of Paris Township voted to become the City of Kentwood in 1967, keeping the mall in Kentwood.
By the end of the 1960s, malls had become a staple in American life. This changed holiday traditions that instead of downtown department stores competing to having the best St. Nick and the most lavish decorations to local malls offering an array of holiday experiences. There were indoor ice rinks to a New Jersey mall with a 48-foot Santa. In fact, that Santa was remembered so fondly, the mall brought it out of retirement for this holiday season.
Decorations at Woodland Mall also were special, noted Ann Schlink who has worked at Woodland for 21 years.
“The first one was very elaborate,” Schlink said. “It was throughout the mall, the plaids…There was a big Christmas tree in the mall and then after the redevelopment it got moved down to the Macy’s wing which was nice because it was Hudson’s at the time and it tied into the the Hudson’s theme a lot.”
Eventually those decorations were retired to the Grand Rapids Public Museum. The former mall decorations are now used in the museum’s Streets of Old Grand Rapids.
Woodland also had a Santas around the world display and Schlink said most people will remember the Christmas tree from a couple of years ago, which now stands in the mall’s outside plaza. The current Arctic Forest decorations, which was unveiled in 2017, includes 12 decorated trees and a 12-foot lighted polar bear known as Ursa. Even the Woodland Mall stores get into the holiday spirit with decorated windows just like what the department stores use to do.
Besides having Santa, Malls also hosted a variety of activities. Rogers Plaza has had the Wyoming Gives Back for the past 12 years. After first opening, Woodland Mall had a production of “A Christmas Carol.” Today, Woodland hosts a holiday concert series and RiverTown Crossings, which opened in 1999, has had pop up shops featuring an array of vendors.
“We use to really like Marshall Fields because they had frozen yogurt upstairs so it was a big deal for us to get our frozen yogurt everytime we came to the mall,” McCabe said. “So we had these little family traditions based around our shopping habits as a kid. It was fun.’’
Schlink said she always enjoyed the piano player at Hudson’s with McCabe adding Woodland is excited about having Von Maur open next year as the store will be bringing the tradition of a piano back to Woodland Mall.
With the passage of time, things change. Hudson’s became Marshall Fields which became Macy’s. Other stores, such as Gantos, Kinney Shoes, Disney Stores, Florsheim Shoes, and Anchor Blue, and even some malls — Northland Mall was torn down in 2017 — have since faded from the landscape. The places are remembered fondly with sites dedicated to past malls and stores. Geoffrey Hudson talks of visits to the former North Kent Mall, which was located on Plainfield Avenue from 1971 – 2000, in his blog GR Retro.
“I used to go to North Kent almost exclusively to hang out at Aladdin’s Castle, one of the last great old-school game arcades,” Hudson writes on the site. “…Another thing I remember is for a while, NK was the home to the only old-style photo booths. Not the sort that are around today where you can be superimposed in front of the backgrounds and such, but the type where it fires off four takes and you get a strip of (black & white!) photos at the end.”
Along with changing photo booths, technology has changed shopping patterns, but malls like Woodland remain a focal point for many especially during the holidays.
“It’s so busy and full of families excited to see Santa Claus and enjoying all our decor and special events,” McCabe said. “So it’s just really fun to see families gathering here and shopping and enjoying this special time of the year.”
“The people that I have worked with over the years and met through the mall over the years, they comeback at Christmas,” Schlink said. “It’s like a reunion of the people and it’s magical because now they are bringing their children to see Santa Claus and to do shopping and it just feels like home.”
