Santa's homes away from home

We know Santa Claus is a stylish guy. He understands the iconic impact a two-tone colour scheme imparts for his work clothes and, whenever in civvies, he's always nattily attired. Mrs. Claus, while a tad dowdy, is nonetheless well put together and makes sure the elves are co-ordinated in their dress.

However, reports on the Claus's architecture and interior design at their North Pole compound are sketchy at best, since no known photographs exist; everything from icy medieval castle-like structures to abstract Marlon Brandoesque "fortress of solitude" affairs have been depicted in the media.

Since travel to the North Pole at this time of year is inadvisable (except with the aid of a certain red-nosed quadruped), my interior designer wife Shauntelle and I decided to visit four of the Greater Toronto Area's top shopping malls to see if Santa's temporary homes offered any clues as to a preferred architectural style.

To make things more interesting, we scrutinized other key items within each scheme. Elf/child accessibility, thinking outside the (gift) box, Santa's seat (and how it relates to the architecture), and the overall "twinkle factor" were compared and contrasted at Santa's digs in Square One, Scarborough Town Centre, Yorkdale and the Eaton Centre. While there were no winners and losers (everyone's a winner at Christmas), what we found did bring us to certain conclusions.

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source: theglobeandmail.com