Square One Shopping Centre in Ontario, CA is celebrating a bright, shiny Christmas this year with an impressively choreographed light and music show. Each Santa photo is projected onto its Magic Video Christmas Tree, which sparkles and shines with the show.

And Square One has been kind enough to share a video of the show, which takes place every 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Central City in Surrey, CA, aims to make Christmas a little easier for its shoppers this year.

The shopping center is holding a contest for a $5000 shopping spree. But to make things even easier for the winner, the prize includes a personal shopper that will make the holiday shopping experience much more pleasant. Who wouldn’t want to shop with someone to give them personal advice and carry their bags?

The shopping center is also offering a conveniant, low cost solution to photos with Santa. It’s chosen to completely eschew traditional photo packages, instead offering shoppers a CD of digital images. With people choosing to preserve their photos in digital format more and more these days, this may prove to be a popular decision.

A number of shopping centers are trying new options for Santa photos this year, from encouraging shoppers to use their own cameras to giving away free, branded pictures. Is your mall doing anything different for Santa photos this year?

You undoubtedly use your shopping center’s newsletter as a valuable resource. With brand loyalty becoming a bigger issue in the current economic climate, being able to reach out to your audience and remind them why they love to shop at your mall is priceless. But are you doing all you can to connect with your shoppers?

In recent weeks, a number of malls have been upping the ante on newsletter registration. While many malls are still offering a chance to win a gift card or retailer prize package, some shopping centers are raising the value of their sign-up contests. One perennially popular contest to drive registrations is a chance to win a Nintendo Wii. Facing another Christmas season filled with Wii shortages, shoppers are willing to take whatever chance is offered to get their hands on the hard-to-find console.

But Cadillac Fairview is one company that’s taking it a step further with its “Go Green and Win” promotion. Shoppers who register for the Cadillac Fairview Experience (the company’s collection of email newsletters) are entered to win a tropical vacation for four, along with the usual gift cards and prize packs.

Not only is the prize inspirational – the website is impressive too. Filled with tips for green shopping and entertaining, the site offers even more value for discerning shoppers. Users can rate the articles, adding a social aspect. But the promotion itself doesn’t seem particularly green, so that disconnect may turn off skeptical shoppers, who are wary of “greenwashing.”

Do you find your shopping center’s newsletter(s) even more valuable in tough economic times?

The Mall at Lawson Heights in Saskatchewan, CA, has arranged its own economic stimulus package: 69 cent dollars. The mall is running a promotion for the next week that allow shoppers to buy up to 20 “Mall Dollars” at 69 cents each. The Mall Dollars can be exchanged for a dollar’s goods from most of the mall’s retailers (excluding a few of the major chains, drugstores and grocery stores).

It’s a fun idea that shows shoppers the value of coming out to their local mall for their holiday shopping. It’s a bit fresher than a mall-wide sale, and the per-person limitations keep it easy on the budget.

How is your mall helping people save money (and keep shopping) this holiday season?

An Alberta, Canada shopping center has a novel response to the threat of vacant kiosks – put them to a good cause. While a number of shopping centers have taken to leasing out small empty shops and kiosks to local charities, libraries, and arts centers for a good rate, Southcentre Mall is taking it a step further.

Southcentre has launched the Calgary’s Mompreneur of the Year contest. The contest calls moms across Southern Alberta to send in their plans for a great product or service. To ensure that the winner is serious, entrants must have samples of their product or service available, along with financing, financial projections and marketing plans. But for the mom with the best plan, the prize will be well worth it: one rent-free kiosk at Southcentre for a year.

It’s certainly a better idea than replacing that empty kiosk with another couch.