Spirit Halloween now testing new Spirit Christmas stores

Some Spirit Halloween locations will be busy for longer than usual this year.

Spirit Halloween will operate 10 stores through the entire holiday season as “Spirit Christmas,” a spokesperson confirmed with CNBC.

Instead of the company’s usual strategy of renting abandoned storefronts only long enough to host the Halloween-specific retailer, 10 stores around the Northeast will 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.

“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.”

Each store will have holiday inflatables and decor, but they will not all have the same experiences. The new stores won’t just replace fake skulls and costumes with wrapping paper and stockings, they will also have activities like photographs with a real-life Santa and letter writing to the North Pole.

The first 10 locations will act as a test to see whether customers will stay invested through the holiday season.