Baubles all over the world is the name of the game for some at the department store – you can see Yuletide in summer becoming an august institution

I’ll tell you what was flying off the shelves in the Selfridges Christmas shop, London, on 6 August 2015: pure white baubles that said “Selfridges 2015”. This is a big thing in the world of Christmas trees; it’s the modern equivalent of collecting spoons.



“Wherever I go, to any major city,” said Paula Byrne, “I always visit the Christmas store. My tree has got every continent on it.” She is accompanied by a full complement of menfolk: her father, Tommy Simon, 75, her husband John, 53, and her son Harrison, 15. They are uncomplaining, as they lurk between robins made of twigs and tiny owls in exquisitely soft, unknowable fabrics: her father has even bought some Christmas cards, as a gesture of goodwill. “We don’t just have a tree,” Paula, 49, adds, “we have mini-trees in the kids’ bedrooms.”



I raise an eyebrow at Harrison. “We have to,” he explains. John expands on this: “It’s not optional. I was working in Germany one time, and I rang her up. It was August. She said: ‘Let me just pause the film.’ It was Jingle All The Way.”

Sam, 46, is with her son, Callum, 13. Kids acquiesce to all this, I’ve decided, because they think it’s the price you pay for presents. None looked as bored as one would, say, in a shoe shop. “I do put my tree up at the very beginning of December. I’m quite specific about what I’ll have on it. It’s whites and silvers. I will have some personal ones that the kids have made, and we’ll have baubles from all over the world, so long as they’re not gaudy.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Selfridges Christmas Shop. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

If Selfridges announced that it had sold out of its own branded bauble-wear before we’d even reached autumn, I wouldn’t be surprised. Along with the souvenir-tree builders, there is a hardcore of tourists who just really like Selfridges.

Leisa Hutchings, 58, is buying heavily branded tree-wear for her daughter in Australia, but says no shops put up their decorations over there until after the public holiday on the first weekend of October. “And people say that’s too early. Every year, they say the same thing.” It’s different in Australia, we agree, because they’ve got used to putting up fake snow and glass icicles in the summer. If a marketing push shunted it back to August, that would still be winter; and that would just be weird.

“In Italy,” said Beverley, 52, who lives there, “the tree goes up on 8 December, because that’s the Immaculate, and comes down on 6 January. It’s so much better. As a teacher of elementary schoolchildren, I know that you can keep the enthusiasm going for so long, but it’s not infinite. Having the church helps. When the children say: ‘Father Christmas is coming,’ a priest will go [she looms at me convincingly]: ‘Baby Jesus is coming.’”

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The yule trajectory goes like this: on 11 January, there is a trade fair in Atlanta, where the year’s themes will emerge. This year’s Christmas theme is monochrome; the store theme (it’s different) is constellations; and there is a trend towards personalisation, which is not the same as a theme. The trend and the theme cross over and reach apotheosis in personalised constellation wrapping paper, which features your name and perhaps your star sign; for extra, you get a star bought for you and given your name.



I’m a little shaky on the detail, because I had an insistent end-of-civilisation alarm bell going off in my head. Geraldine James, the Christmas buying manager, explained: “It’s vital, really, because otherwise you buy a lot of random things. Buying things in colour groups is quite important, it helps to focus the department. I then decide what percentage of the buying goes into that theme – it’s a balance. You want to show things that look exciting and new, but you can’t have a department without green, red and gold. Not everyone will want a black bauble.”

Her colleague showed me their most expensive bauble, which is £210, and is, indeed, green, red and gold. It’s rather large, I suppose, but if you asked me to guess, looking at it, whether it was £2.10, £21 or £210, I simply wouldn’t have been able to.



After about half an hour on the shop floor, I noticed a snow globe for £31.50 and thought that seemed quite reasonable. Maybe that’s why they open in August, to give everyone a chance to acclimatise; by December, spending £1,475 on a life-size articulated reindeer will seem quite reasonable. “I wonder where you’d store it, though, the rest of the year,” a passing shopper worried. We both made a face that said once you’d spent a grand and a half on a reindeer, you probably wouldn’t worry a lot about year-round storage solutions. It’s amazing how universal that face is.