Christmas comes early for London department store

[August 03, 2018]    By Hanna Rantala

LONDON (Reuters) - On a hot summery Thursday in London, Santa Claus turned up 144 days early wearing a studded leather jacket to open the new Christmas shop at department store Selfridges.

Shoppers queue for the Boxing Day sales at Selfridges in London, Britain December 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mary Turner

Holding a guitar and sporting black sunglasses, Santa was dressed to fit the store's theme of "Selfridges Rocks Christmas".

With London basking in the midst of a heatwave, t-shirts rather than Christmas jumpers seemed more appropriate but Selfridges defended the move to start the Christmas countdown almost five months before Dec. 25.

"We have customers that really demand Christmas during this time of year," Eleanor Gregory from Selfridges told Reuters.

"So as long as we have customers that are coming to us demanding to shop Christmas this time of year, we will always meet that demand and we're happy to launch our Christmas shop in the middle of summer."

A Ziggy Stardust Christmas tree decoration and an Elvis Presley nutcracker figure were among the rock-themed items on sale.

(Writing by Patrick Johnston; Editing by Alison Williams)

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