Robert Lalah, Staff ReporterWITH ONLY two shopping days left until Christmas, the streets and stores across the Corporate Area and other parts of the country are being flooded with shoppers who, in typical Jamaican fashion, have left their gift buying for the last minute.
When The Gleaner visited the Constant Spring area of St. Andrew yesterday, a colourful sea of people signalled the impending holiday.
Pushing and shoving their way through the doors of lavishly decorated stores, Jamaicans from near and far seemingly put the challenges of the year behind them as they went in search of gifts to make their loved ones happy.
Marlon Gibbons, a high school teacher from May Pen, Clarendon, said he made the trek from Clarendon to Kingston, not because he was unable to find the items he wanted to buy closer to home, but because being in the island's capital city never fails to put him in the Christmas spirit.
"Everything is fine in Clarendon but there is no place to feel the Christmas atmosphere quite like Kingston. Being here with the crowd, the music and, believe it or not, even the vendors, makes me feel in the Christmas mood," he said.
FLASHING RED HEARTS
Dressed from head to toe in green and red with a Santa hat with flashing red hearts to top it off, 37-year-old Mireth Gardner, a housewife from St. Andrew, strolled merrily through the parking lot of the Mall Plaza. To every note of the Christmas carols resonating from the speakers set up by a nearby clothes store, Mrs. Gardner, with her two young sons by her side, rocked and dipped her entire body. "Some say Christmas is only for the kids, so I become a kid at Christmas. My boys and I get equally excited during this time of the year. There is just a joy in the air, I love it so much," she exclaimed with a grin.
Store owners were not the only ones benefiting from the rise in Christmas spirit, however, as the walkways and parking lots of the shopping plazas were the scenes of booming business of a less formal kind.
Shouts of "starlight, fifty dollar. Baby dolly, hundred!" permeated the air as scores of pertinacious vendors patrolled the area. Gareth Green, whose arms served as shelves for his goods, which included everything from figurines to pot covers, said despite the fact that business for him has been slow so far, he intends to make the most of Christmas in the city. "Ah my time now man. Everything free up. Mi nuh badda worry bout di profit. From mi can eat a food and drink a beer my Christmas all right," he gleefully exclaimed.
