Ivy and Irving are back.
The two inflatable reindeer who repose atop Tysons Corner Center’s marquees on Routes 7 and 123 throughout the holiday shopping season were restored to their perches last week with considerable fanfare and an all-out media blitz that included lunch invitations from mall management to news reporters and photographers.
Most of their attention centered on Ivy.
She is the deer on the Route 7 side that disappeared last year, only to reappear under mysterious circumstances after the mall sent out an SOS through news reporters.
ALTHOUGH a reindeer balloon is valued at $15,000 and its heist qualifies as a felony, the mall promised it would not prosecute if Ivy was safely returned.
And she was; Fairfax County Police were out of the loop, so there was no investigation, and no arrest.
“If there is no complaining witness, there is no crime,” said Officer Patrick Lucas of the McLean District Station, who attended the ceremony on Route 7 on Nov. 20.
“Witnesses are crucial in any investigation,” he said.
This year, Tysons Corner Center revisited Ivy’s disappearance with a media event to launch the holiday shopping center, inviting reporters and photographers to take pictures of Ivy’s inflation and perhaps boosting media representation by offering lunch at the mall afterward. Characters dressed as McGruff the crime-fighting dog, the Palace Guard, and a Keystone Cop came forward, as did Santa himself, as a “reindeer protection squad” to keep an eye on the charming if cumbersome reindeer.
Children will be “deputized” to help, said mall manager Kathy Hannon.
“This year, we’re serious about securing Ivy and Irving, but we also hope to have a little fun with the situation.”
She also announced that Santa would begin seeing children at 10 a.m. the following day at his Fashion Court location. Those visits will continue until Dec. 24, she said.
Lucas sidestepped questions about whether Ivy’s disappearance constituted a crime. After she was recovered from “a nearby office building” that locals say was really the parking lot behind Marshall High School, the caper was characterized in some quarters as a prank. Others called it a publicity stunt. Was it?
“We treat every incident as credible until we determine otherwise,” said Lucas. “Without witnesses as proof, it is hard to say if it was or it wasn’t.
In either case, he said, “There is a message here for people to be alert and aware of their surroundings,” particularly during the holidays, when people don’t always pay attention to what is going on around them.
“THEIR FOCUS IS on what they are doing or where they are trying to go,” he said. But it’s in the public interest for shoppers to maintain a heads-up posture as they go about the business of preparing for the holidays.
“You are the [public's] eyes and ears,” Lucas said. “If you see anything suspicious, albeit this is a reindeer, we do encourage people to call and report it.”
After the departure of the mall managers and the media, Tysons Corner maintenance workers went to the other marquee on Route 123, where Irving, the other reindeer, was roped down and inflated with no fanfare at all.
He looks just like Ivy, including the casual pose on his stomach with his hind legs up in the air. Both deer stay inflated because of a fan in their leg, said Rob Rinker.
But Irving has a tear in his leg: “a broken leg,” as mall worker Mike Mudd described it.
The Friday after Thanksgiving Day, known as “black Friday,” is considered the heaviest shopping day of the year at Tysons Corner.