Is it Christmas in London yet? It's really hard to tell, what with traditional festive lights being replaced with a shameless movie promotion and a distinct lack of Santa Clauses.
And we're not the only ones that have noticed.
James Lovell, director of "Crazee" PR stunt company, Ministry of Fun have seen a steep decline in the demand for their Santa lookalikes.
"A lot of stores have just stuck up more shelves, selling more products" bemoans poor James, who probably provides the Kris Kringle dopplegangers for free, but when he's not fretting about the bottom line he does have a point.
The larger London department stores are moving away from your more traditional Grotto based lap-sitting experiences and towards a more drive-by Santa encounter where the failed beardy actor accosts you on the shop floor.
A Selfridges spokesperson believe that this "gives our customers better access to him. They don't have to queue for a grotto."
Nothing to do with expensive floor space, lower overheads and generally poor Christmas revenue as more and more shoppers wait for the sales or buy online then?
Either way the only Grotto Londonist has seen so far was in a shopping mall in Belfast where Santa was being tailed by a 5 foot orange dinosaur, which we're still struggling to work out the seasonal relevance of.
