Nordstrom Aims to Transform Holiday Shopping From Frenetic to Fun

For the holiday 2026 season, Nordstrom‘s New York City flagship on 57th Street is taking a whimsical turn.

Across five selling floors, there’s a sprinkling of interactive displays — from giant funhouse-type mirrors and gummy ball machines to a floating piano playing festive tunes and horns whispering gift ideas in your ear.

But Nordstrom isn’t neglecting the more traditional holiday elements. At the Manhattan flagship there is a photo op on the lower level kids floor that’s part of a classic Christmas scene with reindeer, Santa’s sleigh and Christmas trees. There’s also a full program of Santa events, at the flagship and at all Nordstrom stores across the nation, including free photos for Nordstrom cardholders as well as Storytime with Santa, Santa Breakfasts, and the Letters to Santa experience.

Nordstrom is calling it’s festive holiday flagship the “Oh, What Funhouse!” It’s an integral part of the retailer’s “Oh, What Fun!” holiday 2025 campaign, which also involves streaming and social media and spotlights actor Kyle MacLachlan as “The Gift Expert,” with comedian Atsuko Okatsuka, actor and writer Caleb Hearon, and patternmaker and podcast host Recho Omondi. The campaign was developed by Invisible Dynamics, a branding consultancy.

The flagship holiday experience is conceived as “a playground” for children and adults, to not only stimulate the senses but also help shoppers come up with gift ideas. The 57th Street flagship’s holiday experience runs through Jan. 5 and is replicated at Nordstrom’s flagship in Seattle, where the recently turned-private company is based.

“The holidays are often so stressful, so we asked ourselves how can we infuse some joy and fun, and a degree of unexpectedness to the season,” said Olivia Kim, senior vice president of creative at Nordstrom. “Creating a funhouse seemed like a natural play. I think that there’s something really approachable and unexpected, whimsical and fun when you think about that, and so we wanted to use our New York flagship as an opportunity to create this sensory playground, from what you see and what you smell, what you touch and what you taste, and really make it an interactive, fully immersive experience, and getting customers to visit through the entire store.”

Kim said dressing up the store for holiday was a big effort involving members of the visual, creative and merchant teams as well as several external partners helping with the permitting and scaffolding. The exterior of the 57th Street entrance features a tunnel illuminated by LED lights, framed with floating metallic letters spelling out “Oh, What Fun!” and a marquee-lit portal. The first floor features welcome stations where customers receive a “gift expert guide” that leads them through each activation, where they can collect stickers and jot down notes on gifts.

Nordstrom’s two-level “Corner Shop,” situated by the corner of Broadway and 57th, changes every few months through the year to showcase a different designer or brand. Among those featured in the recent past were Marc Jacobs, Nike, Skims and New Balance. In February, the Corner Shop will be merchandised for Valentine’s Day. But now through Jan. 5, the space has been named “The Gift Shop at the Corner” and is merchandised with an extensive holiday assortment.

Nordstrom has beefed up its holiday offering to make it easier for customers to find something and in many cases more affordable, and to be more competitive, particularly in a retail-saturated city like New York. The strategy seems designed, in part at least, to draw some of the shopping and attention away from competitors, particularly Macy’s Herald Square, which thanks to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the department store’s strong seasonal price promotions, has a reputation as a leading destination for holiday shopping.

The Nordstrom flagship, located at 225 West 57th Street, had a slow start when it opened in late October 2019, just a few months before the pandemic hit. It has been gaining sales and momentum. Recently, it unveiled a renovated beauty floor and relocated accessories to the second floor.

Nordstrom’s Gift Shop at the Corner is the largest and most unique version of the upscale department store’s holiday gift shops, which get rolled out to every Nordstrom location. The Gift Shop at the Corner is hosting special activations and offering elevated services such as The Gift Box Bar, where customers can create a custom gift box with their choice of ribbons and charms. In addition, there is a personalization station, a photo booth, and service is provided by Nordstrom’s “gift experts.” 

The Gift Shop’s expanded assortment on 57th Street includes beauty sets, accessories, kids’ apparel, toys, games, home essentials, and plenty of cozy styles, including robes, slippers, matching family pajama sets and home essentials. There are also a lot of New York-centric items, like snow globes and ornaments, even a New York City Marathon candle. Compared to years past, the gift shop this year leans heavier on less expensive items. Approximately 1,000 gifts are offered, with 90 percent of them priced under $100, and 60 percent priced under $50.

“We’ve been really intentional about letting customers know that we are a gifting destination, that we have gifts of all different categories, all different prices,” Kim said.

The Nordstrom holiday catalog is bigger this year with almost 100 pages — over 25 with toys and gifts for kids — and more than 800 gifts in total. The holiday assortment is even larger on Nordstrom’s online marketplace, where there is more than 110,000 gifting options and where personalized recommendations are provided by Nordstrom’s new AI “gift expert in training” feature, where you can input who you are shopping for and their preferences and hobbies. At its stores, Nordstrom will stage more than 1,500 holiday-related events.

“We wanted to flip the script on traditional holiday shopping,” said Kim. “‘Oh, What Funhouse!’ transforms the store into a surreal playground where gifting becomes instinctive, expressive and joyful. It’s about awakening the senses, embracing bold choices, and creating moments that feel unmistakably New York.”