Keeping with retail rules of yesteryear, Nordstrom Stores once again waited until Thanksgiving Day to decorate its stores for Christmas. At the company's flagship store in Downtown Seattle about 60 associates worked well into the morning to ready the store for the holidays. This year's theme is "Once upon a holiday" and it's based on the book written by Nordstrom copywriter Randy Schliep, and illustrated by Lisa Evans, a British freelance artist.
The book, titled "Once Upon A Holiday: The Moon Fell Out of the Sky," is a story about a little girl named Sophie who has just moved to a new home on the edge of a snowy forest. It's Christmas Eve and as she drifts off to sleep, she tells the moon her secret Christmas wish. She's asked Santa for one special gift: a new friend. But when she awakens in the night, she discovers an event that could change the course of Christmas. Now it's up to a little girl, an ambitious cow, a wise owl and a luminescent moon to save the holiday.
The phrase "Once upon a holiday, gifts were given" will caption the displays in all of Nordstrom's 101 stores across the country. Characters from the book will appear in Nordstrom store decorations, catalogs, gift cards, holiday bags and on the company's website. And in conjunction with the book, Nordstrom will make a $10,000 donation to Friends of Libraries USA, which provides resources and services across the country to support libraries.
What a unique and original idea! And with all of the printing on demand capabilities available today, it's an idea any retailer with an imagination can adopt. Can you imagine the buzz about town you'd build if you wrote a holiday story and themed your store's decor to match your book? Definitely a good idea. File this idea under "Things to do for Holiday 2008".
