This year's Christmas in Canada coincided with a mild winter. With pleasant weather and glimpses of sunshine, many Chinese immigrants in Canada headed out early in the morning to dine at restaurants or visit Chinese shopping malls. According to Canadian media reports, while all major shopping centers and most Chinese supermarkets in the Greater Toronto Area were closed on Christmas Day, various Chinese malls were bustling with activity and crowded with people, making parking spaces extremely hard to find.
Pacific Mall and Market Village, located at the border of Toronto and Markham, are the most popular destinations for the Chinese community every Christmas. Starting at 10:00 AM, cars began to arrive; by noon, the large parking lots were already full. Many latecomers often had to circle the parking lot for at least ten minutes or longer before finding an available spot.
After the afternoon, the difficulty of finding parking became even more severe. Some people had to drop off passengers first, while the drivers parked their cars in the parking lots of mainstream shopping centers across from Market Village. Meanwhile, vehicles continued to stream into the malls, with lines of cars even spilling out onto the street.
Large indoor Chinese malls in Markham, such as New Kennedy Square, Metro Square, and First Markham Place, saw some shops closed, but because the restaurants inside remained open, they were all packed. By noon, the parking lots of these malls were already filled with cars, and in some areas, parking was hard to come by.
Chinese restaurants during the holiday were almost all experiencing booming business, with both large banquet halls and small eateries nearly full. Many restaurants had long queues of people waiting for tables outside their doors. Starting from 10:00 AM, dozens of people were waiting at the entrances of restaurants like the Century Palace in Markham for staff to call their numbers for seating.
Since several large Chinese supermarkets in Markham, which have obtained holiday franchise permits for tourist attractions, chose to close on Christmas Day, the Chinese businesses that remained open seized the great opportunity to do business. To facilitate early shopping for the Chinese community, many Chinese malls opened an hour earlier than usual.
At Pacific Mall around noon, almost every aisle was filled with a constant stream of people, and every shop had customers browsing. Many Chinese families came with children and friends, either as a whole family or meeting up with close friends, intending to spend Christmas together in the mall. The situation at Market Village and First Markham Place was similar, with customers arriving early in the morning to shop. By noon, almost every store appeared to be thriving with business.
