Had enough of shopping? No? Then why not try the 'Great Mall of China' in Beijing. Clifford Coonan did . . .
The Christmas soundtrack is seasonal enough, but there is no sign of the real Santa Claus in the world's biggest shopping mall, which has just opened in Beijing. Nor of his elves. Nor of all that many shoppers.
To the strains of Jingle Bells and Mary's Boy Child, we set out on a quest through the Golden Resources shopping centre for the elusive rotund figure known in Chinese as Shengdanjie Laoren - Christmas Old Man.
The huge shopping centre, which foreigners call the "Great Mall of China", has 1,000 shops, 230 escalators, enormous restaurants, complete with live crocodiles to chomp on, an artificial ski slope under construction, a cineplex and a health spa.
Move over Minnesota's "Mall of America", which is spread over a mere 370,000 square metres - Golden Resources covers 580,000 square metres and has nearly twice as many shops.
But a lot fewer Santas.
People in China reserve their energies for Chinese New Year, but they do enjoy watching foreigners celebrate the festival.
Despite the fact that it's just three days before Christmas, there are very few Christmas shoppers to be seen in Golden Resources. In every shop there are more assistants than shoppers.
This mega-mall is the latest symbol of conspicuous consumption in the world's most populous country, a polished steel and glass paean to consumerism spread over 56 hectares (138 acres) of the city's university district, Haidian.
The Chinese economy has grown by leaps and bounds since the late 1970s, and increased affluence has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
This growing economic strength is translating into a middle-class with cash to spend, and retail sales are growing by 13 per cent a year. The number of shopping malls has grown from just five in the late 1990s to about 500 now.
It's easy to forget, while wandering through the airy, white marble and steel halls, with their shops selling Chanel, Hugo Boss and Clarks shoes, that more than 800 million people in China still live on less than a euro a day.
The owners of the mall say that 40,000 people a day visit it during the week, with double that figure at the weekend, but shop-owners say there are a lot less than that.
In the Great Wall wine shop, a temple to China's best-known wine brand, you can buy a double-magnum of Great Wall priced at 888 yuan, about €81 - eight is an extremely auspicious number in China.
However, despite the lucky sales tag, no one is buying today.
Golden Resources sells itself as the "mall that will change your life" and it's certainly a collection of contradictions. This is capitalism in extremis, but it's also happening in a one-party state which cracks down ruthlessly on any nascent political opposition, lending its massiveness an alternative, more sinister interpretation - that of totalitarian gigantism. Though ultimately, the kind of growing middle-class power the mall displays so blatantly subverts that message, too.
Some of the shop names in the enormous International Classical Furniture Hall come across as strange: "The Bill from Texas", "Valuable", "Germane" and "King's Ring", but the quality of the goods is extremely high and the variety amazing.
International is a popular tag for any goods on sale in New China - it lends an air of coveted sophistication and works as a great marketing ploy to bring in all that freshly-made currency.
On the floor below is the International Modern Furniture Hall, which has a large range of contemporary brands from both China and abroad. The standard of the Chinese-made goods is extremely high compared to the imports, something that is increasingly evident in China, where manufacturers learn fast.
There is a German section, a Taiwanese section and a Japanese section. No Irish section yet, but with the Taoiseach due to visit early next year, it might yet happen.
Perhaps the Taoiseach might want to visit the 600-metre-long mall road called Happiness Street - where you can buy everything you need for a wedding. Or go ice-skating on the full-size rink.
In the Paper Tiger Book Store (named after Mao's famous taunt that the capitalist West was no more than a "paper tiger", or nothing to be afraid of), there are no foreign books in English. Strangely, though - given their tradition of political opposition - there are many translations of Czech writers such as Milan Kundera and Ivan Klima. The government does not permit ordinary Chinese bookshops to sell foreign literature.
And there are books by another great son of Prague, Franz Kafka, whose descriptions of bureaucratic horror strike a chord with many in China.
The Tele-Tubbies somehow also slipped through the net.
Some of the eateries sound promising, such as "The East Comes Happy" hot-pot restaurant, although we opted for some dumplings, the toothsome local ravioli-like speciality known as "jiaozi", served with vinegar. Our bill for four or five dishes, with a Japanese-style tea, comes to 29 yuan, about €2.60.
In another restaurant, a huge golden Buddha sits happily as Santa looks on from a door decoration, but it is the three Thai crocodiles staring out at passers-by from a tank which really grab the attention.
Their snouts are bound with red tape. Red is a lucky colour, though presumably not for these gated creatures.
Crocodile paws, which have powerful qualities in traditional Chinese medicine, retail at around €40.
In the basement is the inevitable car dealership, a staple in a country obsessed with the internal combustion engine. There are hundreds of new cars on sale - Toyotas, Jaguars, Peugeots, Chinese models.
Zhu Cuiling and Yao Lu are 19-year-old students who have just had lunch in the mall and are taking photographs with their snazzy new mobile phone cameras of Santa Claus and his reindeers grouped around a Christmas tree.
"I love it, this place is really cool. We come here a lot, just for fun, sometimes to buy things, sometimes to hang out. The reason it's not full is because no one knows about it yet," says Ms Zhu.
Then she and her friend take a couple of final snaps of the plastic Santa before running off, hand-in-hand, to window-shop. Laughing all the way.