WINTER wonderlands featuring Santa, cute animals, Christmas trees and other decorations have popped up in malls throughout Kuching as the most wonderful time of the year draws near.
The buying frenzy has increased as Christmas approaches, indicating that consumer confidence has recovered following the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year, the Spring shopping mall is ‘sleighing’ their Christmas decorations with its theme “Christmas Wanderlust”.
The mall has decked its halls with the most lavish, eye-catching, and Instagrammable Christmas decorations imaginable.
To find out how people are preparing for Christmas, New Sarawak Tribune conducted interviews around the shopping mall.
Robby, 34, from Sri Aman, brought her family along as they went shopping while enjoying the festive ambiance in town.
For Christmas, she said they had only begun to shop, starting with her family’s outfits.
“We are here to shop for clothes for Christmas, in addition to looking for other necessities.
“For groceries, usually our family will buy at the last minute to ensure the freshness of the cooking ingredients. After all, we will be going back to Sri Aman to celebrate.”
As such, she is looking forward to a family gathering, as this year’s celebration will be much bigger compared to previous years when the country was hit by Covid-19.
As Covid-19 restrictions had been relaxed, her family was likewise thrilled to experience the Christmas spirit and seeing people thronging the mall.
Meanwhile, Theodoric Job Lingan, 33, said his family had done nothing yet to prepare.
Hailing from Miri, he said they would spend the final week before Christmas buying essentials to celebrate the festival at their hometown.
“However, I’m looking forward to celebrating Christmas this year as we have been in the endemic phase.
“We will be having a family gathering and so on.”
Also excited to celebrate Christmas was Ignatius Mada from Bintulu.
The 71-year-old man was sitting on a bench with his wife when New Sarawak Tribune approached them.
Although they have not yet prepared anything to celebrate Christmas, he said they would be waiting for their family and friends to visit.
“We have not prepared yet (for Christmas). But we will try to complete our preparations. For groceries, we also haven’t prepared anything.
“We are looking forward to Christmas carolling because it has been quite a while since we last did it, more than two years already. And we will be waiting for our family and friends to come over and visit.”
