Spirit Halloween may be packed up for the year, but Spirit Christmas is just getting started. The brand opened six Spirit Christmas stores across New Jersey, including locations in Mays Landing, Cherry Hill, Toms River, Lawrenceville, Paramus, and Rockaway. All of them are fully open now for the holiday season.
I visited the Rockaway location myself, and here’s exactly what it was like inside.
As soon as you walk through the first set of doors, there’s a pair of giant Santa boots to your right on a round platform in front of a snowy cartoon backdrop. It’s honestly the perfect photo moment right at the entrance. But once you walk through the second set of doors, that’s when you really see what they did with the place. You’re welcomed into “Peppermint Lane,” which is the store’s big holiday entrance display, and it’s huge and super detailed.
Peppermint Lane has giant candy canes framing the entrance, characters popping out of gift boxes, and gingerbread-style cottages with characters peeking through the windows. Snowy trees line the sides, faux snow covers the base, and it genuinely feels like you walked into a mini winter village.
They also have these floor stickers that say “Step Here,” and when you do, the characters activate and start moving. Kids were running all over stepping on every single one and having a blast. It’s one of the most interactive parts of the entire store.
When you walk through Peppermint Lane, there’s a full Send a Letter to Santa setup. They provide you the postcard and pen, and you can write a note and drop it into their candy-striped mailbox. The whole station is lit and decorated like a tiny North Pole post office, and it’s such a cute detail to add right in the middle of everything.
The decor aisles go on forever. They have wall signs and porch signs with Snoopy, Mickey and Minnie, Stitch, and a bunch of other popular characters. The wreath selection is huge — classic wreaths with red bows, frosted ones with berries and pinecones, metallic ornament wreaths, bright red designs, silver ones, literally every style you could imagine. Same with the garlands — they have metallic tinsel, ornament garlands, greenery with berries and ribbons… whatever holiday style you like, it’s there.
Then you hit Inflatable Land, and it feels like a mini amusement park. There’s a towering Rudolph, a giant nutcracker, huge present boxes with characters sitting on top, SpongeBob’s pineapple decorated for Christmas, massive snowmen, polar bears, gingerbread houses, animated penguins, and Santa popping out of chimneys. The one that stands out the most is the huge abominable snowman inflatable with giant blue hands. You look tiny standing next to it. It’s impossible to miss.
Plush throw blankets featuring Disney characters and holiday prints fill the hanging display rack. The drinkware section is basically heaven for anyone who collects mugs. They have gingerbread mugs, Santa mugs, patterned mugs, glitter tumblers, insulated cups, character bottles, tall tumblers, giant jugs… seriously every holiday cup you can think of.
Throughout the store, there are tons of photo ops. A gold-trimmed red throne sits among gingerbread houses, candy canes, snowy trees, and presents. It looks like a mini scene straight out of the North Pole, and families kept stopping to take pictures.
The apparel section is huge. They have Christmas onesies in Santa, reindeer, Christmas tree, candy-cane stripe, and fuzzy character styles, plus ugly sweaters covered in lights, bells, tinsel, pom-poms, and ornaments. The hat wall is overflowing with cartoon knit caps, character hats, elf hats, reindeer hats, tree hats decorated like ornaments, and plush Santa cowboy hats.
They also have super cute holiday gift bags, tons of stocking stuffers (including oversized ones), and some wild shirts with completely unhinged sayings clearly made for laughs and office party contests. One even has a little pocket where you can insert alcohol and dispense it, which was so cool. You’ll find Christmas socks, nutcrackers, moving displays, ornaments, Christmas tree-shaped pasta, and matching pajama sets.
At checkout, Spirit gives customers the option to donate to a local children’s hospital. There’s a whole wall covered in paper snowflakes representing donations through Spirit of Children, and it’s almost completely filled.
If you haven’t been here yet, I highly recommend checking it out.
Alondra Cabrera is the Editorial Assistant at New Jersey Digest. She recently graduated from Montclair State University with a degree in Communication and Media Studies. During her time at school, she discovered her passion for journalism and content creation. In her free time, she loves to create and edit videos for her corgis, Rafi and Toffe, and indulge in culinary adventures with her friends. Alondra also enjoys traveling, cooking, and working out. She is excited to embark on her professional journey in media and looks forward to contributing her skill and creativity to her role here at New Jersey Digest.
