Spirit Christmas, the holiday-themed sister brand to Spirit Halloween, is opening four stores across Florida this year, marking the company's first expansion into the state. The pop-up retailer is taking over empty storefronts in Clearwater, Coral Springs, Jacksonville and Winter Garden, reoccupying commercial space left behind by bankrupt or downsizing chains.
According to WKMG, the Clearwater store will sit at 2522 McMullen Booth Road, with additional locations planned at 725 N. University Drive in Coral Springs, 6000 Lake Gray Blvd. in Jacksonville, and 3049 Daniels Road in Winter Garden. No exact opening dates have been provided for the Florida stores, though WKMG reports that Spirit Christmas locations typically open sometime in November. The outlet also notes the Florida rollout is part of the brand's first foray into North Carolina and South Carolina as well.
Those four addresses aren't just any vacant real estate. The Clearwater location is moving into a former Stein Mart, the Coral Springs store is taking over a former Big Lots, the Jacksonville site was previously a Bealls, and the Winter Garden store is filling space once occupied by Forever 21, according to Clearwater Patch. It's a pattern familiar to anyone who's watched national chains retreat from Florida strip malls in recent years, with Spirit's pop-up model stepping in to fill the gap, at least temporarily.
A Different Timeline for Winter Garden
Three of the four Florida stores — Clearwater, Coral Springs and Jacksonville — are expected to follow Spirit's standard conversion process, operating as Spirit Halloween stores through October 31 before a quick one-week turnaround to reopen as Christmas stores on November 6, the same report notes. That timeline applies broadly across the brand's 2026 footprint, with 38 of its 43 planned locations nationwide converting directly from Halloween stores within a single week.
Winter Garden is the outlier. Unlike the other three Florida locations, the Winter Garden Village store is set up as a standalone Christmas location opening earlier in October, rather than converting from a Halloween store in November, per the same Clearwater Patch report. The store is also located along a Central Florida corridor near major Orlando tourism attractions.
Candy Cane Express and Creepmas Merchandise
Shoppers walking into the 2026 Spirit Christmas stores will find more than shelves of ornaments. The locations feature an interactive attraction called the Candy Cane Express, which includes a steerable train, a post office terminal where kids can write letters to Santa, and licensed animatronics featuring characters like Frosty the Snowman and the Peanuts gang, according to Attractions Magazine.
The brand is also leaning into its Halloween roots with a dedicated Creepmas product line that blends horror motifs with traditional Christmas decor, Attractions Magazine reports. It's a niche but deliberate strategy, bridging two very different seasonal identities under one roof.
Rapid Growth Across 15 States
The Florida openings are part of a broader national surge for Spirit Christmas, which is expanding to 43 total locations across 15 states for the 2026 holiday season. That's up from 30 locations in 2025 and just 10 stores during the brand's initial pilot launch in 2024, per Patch's reporting.
The 2026 expansion also marks Spirit Christmas's first entry into the American South, with simultaneous new stores launching in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, according to Attractions Magazine. Spirit Christmas was created as a seasonal spinoff by parent company Spencer Spirit Holdings, which also operates Spencer's and Spirit Halloween, Patch notes.
Spencer Spirit Holdings has been busy on the corporate side this year too. The company agreed in August to acquire mall retailer Hot Topic in a deal valued at approximately $350 million, part of a broader push to expand its retail portfolio.
Behind the Pop-Up Machine
Pulling off dozens of rapid store conversions each year takes a specific labor model. CEO Steven Silverstein said in late 2024 that Spirit relies on a gig-economy staffing structure backed by 400 to 450 seasonal field managers, many of them returning retirees and artists who work from May through November to execute the pop-up rollouts, according to the Wharton Global Youth Program.
That staffing model underpins a real estate strategy that has become increasingly visible across the country, as empty big-box spaces left behind by chains like Big Lots and Stein Mart sit vacant for months or years before a long-term tenant arrives. Spirit's temporary leases offer landlords a stopgap, filling storefronts for a matter of months even as questions about permanent occupancy remain unresolved.
