About 12,000 people have RSVP'd to the Garden State Plaza’s decades-long tradition — the Big Santa celebration — which will be held this Saturday, Nov. 8, and ushers in the holiday shopping season for North Jersey, mall executives said.

The 12,000-person figure doesn’t necessarily mean all those people will turn out, but William Lewis, the mall’s director of marketing, said he still expects a sizable crowd.

The new location for the event — between AMC Theatres and Fogo de Chão near the mall's south end — will enable mall staff and police to better handle the ever-growing crowd of attendees, Lewis said. RSVP’s can be made online but are not required.

“It’s really just an event that grows and grows and grows,” Lewis said in an interview on Nov. 6. “People absolutely love it.”

Story co

See Full Page