Spirit Halloween Opening 10 Christmas Stores

Spirit Halloween (Egg Harbor Twp., N.J.) is dipping its collective toe into the Christmas season. The retailer said it will operate 10 stores through the year-end holiday season under the Spirit Christmas banner, report a variety of news sources, including CNBC.com.

“Spirit Christmas is a new concept for us, and we’re hopeful it will resonate with our customers,” a spokesperson for Spirit Halloween told CNBC. “Our goal is to create a festive retail experience that captures the spirit of the season, much like we do for Halloween.”

This year’s locations will act as a test to see whether customers will stay invested with such stores through the holiday season, the spokesperson said.

Instead of the company’s usual strategy of renting abandoned storefronts only through Halloween, the 10 stores in the Northeast will remain open through the end of the year. The company’s flagship store in Mays Landing, N.J., will open on Oct. 18, while the other nine locations will open in early November, the spokesperson said. Not all stores will be converted from existing Spirit Halloween locations. (In late August, the company – a unit of Spencer’s Gifts – said it planned a total of 1525 such stores this year.)

According to a page on the Spirit Halloween website dedicated to Spirit Christmas, its stores will offer “stocking stuffers, holiday apparel, fun gifts, unique décor plus all the special trimmings for creating an unforgettable holiday.”