I have 90 miles on my new civic 2-dr lx-p. its the 2.0L engine

It is very cold out (32 F). I did auto start and ran it for a few minutes. The gauge is led with bars red tic bars. get to the car, no red bars, indicating still on C. ok, still cold. the heater air felt slightlywarm. i drove for 3 minutes and several stop and go blocks to 7-11. when i park it now only has 2 or 3 ticks of red on the temp gauge. I'd say takes about 20 tics to get to center between H and C which is typical operating temp. Go in 7-11 and leaving it running. Come out 5 minutes later now only 4 or 5 tics. Drive 3 minutes home. Several stop signs and all. Park and still only about 1/4 of the way up the gauge, say 10 tics. I figure total run time of almost 15 minutes and 5-6 minutes of actual driving. Is this odd? Shouldn't the gauge be at operating temp? Heater air now very warm. Could the gauge be slow or could i have a factory defect thermostat? No way that engine should still not be at operating temp 15 minutes later with 5 minutes of driving, or is that somehow normal?

Thanks!