The holiday season hasn't officially kicked off, but some folks in the South Bay reported waiting in traffic lines for more than three hours during a gridlock nightmare at the Westfield Valley Fair mall's parking garages Saturday.

Mall management did not return phone calls to NBC Bay Area, which only creates speculation as to how and why this traffic headache in Santa Clara came to be.

Mall employees are asked to park on the upper levels of the parking structures, a point that some shoppers think may have jammed up available spaces. Witnesses talking to mall security were told that clogged garages are just something to be expected when the holiday rush kicks off and people flock to the shopping center.

Glenn Woodson from Monterey said it took 90 minutes just to find a place to park.

"The traffic backs up into the garage itself and then no one in the garage can move around so it's creating total gridlock," he said.

Unfortunately for some shoppers, leaving the mall proved to be a much more frustrating task, especially for one family Woodson met along the way.

"They got stuck in traffic for two-and-a-half hours hours and they finally decided to take Uber home and pick up their car (Sunday)," Woodson said.