I had a dream last night that there was a mall right around the corner from where I live. Left turn, right turn, left turn...and there it was, big as life with twice the parking.

But it was just a dream. Probably brought on by my slowly gathering intent to do my Christmas shopping at some not too distant point in the future.

But where to go? Although there are many fine shops an El ride to downtown away, and a sort of glorified strip mall a few miles to the northwest, to get to any sort of real mall here one has to drive to Skokie, or even Gurnee (or, bleah, Burbank).

I grew up very near to Northpark Mall. As shopping is the quintessential Dallas experience (#2 = eating out, #3 = renting movies at Blockbuster), and as Northpark is the crown jewel of the myriad of shopping arenas that spangle the DFW Metroplex, yes, I am a bit spoiled and my expectations of any shopping experience run quite high.

I spent countless hours as a child pushing various siblings' strollers up the sides of the concavely swoopy planters and running around the edges of various indoor fountains (some filled with ducks or, at Christmas, penguins; others only filled with pennies and nickels). I remember the time before Northpark got all ritzed up with GAPs and Expresses, back when there was a Kaybee's Toys instead of an F.A.O. Schwartz and a Big Boy instead of Corner Bakery.

I remember all the Christmas decorations, not many of which have changed. Every Christmas still, I try to go see Scrooge. He lives in a puppet house, emerging every half-hour to flirt with women and squirt kids with his water gun. There is also a huge Twelve Days of Christmas clock (with figures that pop in and out) and a hanging display of Santa and his sleigh and reindeer...made entirely out of nuts. I believe this last display has either rotted away or been moved to a less prominent position, however, as recent photo evidence shows that the place where it once hung is now decorated with strands of white lights.

Did you notice the Frank Stella in the background? Northpark was designed in part to be an art museum. All the walls are light-colored to set the art off in contrast, and the ceilings have many skylights to keep the inside of the building well-lit. Usually that wall has Andy Warhols on it. Northpark also has several of the hammering men and, at times, other arty things are displayed as well.

Many of the things I grew up with are still there (although in the past few years the J.C. Penny's was replaced by a Foley's). The Wyatt's Cafeteria is still going strong, as is the Neuhaus Chocolates that I used to go sip cappuccino at as an oh-so-worldly junior high student. Better yet, it still smells the same: a sort of cool, stony scent laced with musty eau de cubicle wall fabric.

Mind you, I am such a pragmatic lazyass that actually I intend to order all my gifts online to take advantage of Amazon's free shipping and recently dropped prices.

But I will be visiting Northpark over the holidays, and not just because there is a huge Barnes & Noble/Container Store/Cheesecake Factory complex across the street from it these days. Nostalgia aside, the seasonal window displays (Ooh, lladros!) are worth seeing as well.

I like where I live now and all, but sometimes I really do miss the wide open spaces.

Northpark there = Dillards in the bottom left corner. I remember when they rebuilt that clover leaf off of Central Expressway. They razed it to the ground and then reconstructed it, and sometime during the middle of the process driving on the service road turned into a ride from DisneyWorld, because the road was looping up and down and around all the construction, with equipment and workers surrounding you like the 2001 audioanimatronic version of Pirates of the Caribbean (Backhoers of the Plains Region).

I think I'm ready for the holidays.