John Lewis opens Christmas Emporiums

Christmas has come to John Lewis, with the department store opening its one-stop-festive emporiums and experiences for families across 10 of its stores.

The Christmas Emporiums have been designed to be “fun and inspirational” and will host in-store events and festive workshops, alongside offering personalised gifting experiences, as well as presents and decorations.

The John Lewis stores opening Christmas Emporiums include Bluewater, London Oxford Street, London Peter Jones, Southampton, Trafford, Cribbs Causeway, Kingston, Cheadle, Milton Keynes and Newcastle.

Lisa Cherry, head of Christmas at John Lewis and Partners, said in a statement: “Customers have had an elongated summer with restrictions lifting midway and wedding season starting later than usual but now they are certainly ready to start planning and looking forward to Christmas 2021.

“We predict many will want to keep some of the traditions we started last year such as, entertaining on the doorstep and creating magical light displays for our neighbours. But we know customers want to plan their festive season to the max, so they can enjoy their favourite family moments alongside the big day itself, such as Christmas movie night with the family and decorating the house.”

John Lewis adds workshops and personalised experiences to Christmas shopping

Key features from the Christmas Emporium includes more than 500 festive workshops to take part in with over 7,000 tickets available. Workshops include becoming a connoisseur with whisky tasting or a champagne masterclass, wreath-making, hand-made decorations, jumper decorating and treasure hunts. All events will be available to book on experience.johnlewis.com and go live from November 12.

John Lewis is also bringing local artists and makers to five stores with the Curated Makers Market offering customers the opportunity to shop small this Christmas. Each market will welcome four small businesses every week featuring everything from jewellery to artwork, candles to dog accessories. The Curated Makers Market will be featured at Oxford Street, Bluewater, Cribbs Causeway, Solihull and Cheadle.

Cherry added: “So this year we have created the Christmas Emporium bringing everything into one-stop-shop. These are designed so that customers can blitz their seasonal to-do list and pick up everything they need in one fell swoop, but also be a day out for the whole family to kick off their festive fun with tastings, games for the children and inspirational workshops.”

The emporiums will also offer several personalised experiences from creating personalised limited-edition 20cl size bottles of Moët and Chandon Impérial and Moët and Chandon Rosé Impérial at John Lewis Peter Jones to micro-distillery gin masters Sipsmith offering gin mini baubles and personalised bottles at John Lewis Oxford Street. Quality Street will also be returning with personalisation stations in 17 shops.

John Lewis opens 10 Christmas Emporiums and further 25 Christmas shops nationwide

The retailer is also looking for a more sustainable Christmas this year and has removed all single-use plastic packaging from its 3m, 4m and 10m wrapping papers saving over 3.36 tonnes of plastic - the equivalent weight of 146 Emperor Penguins. This follows other initiatives in previous years to remove all plastic from its crackers and making its wrapping paper recyclable.

John Lewis is also the exclusive retailer of A Good Company baubles, which are not only made entirely from organic linseed but is also a byproduct from farming which reduces waste.

In addition, the department store has also opened its Christmas shops across 25 stores nationwide, featuring more than 1,000 seasonal products, 90 percent of which is the retailer’s own brand range.