Who won christmas 2025: David Jones vs myer

There are many ways to sabotage Christmas in retail. Jack prices, kill stock availability, annoy staff, or forget that Christmas is - fundamentally - a theatre-led, emotion-heavy, ritualised moment in the retail calendar.

But this year, David Jones managed to find a new one. By quietly removing one of the most recognisable pieces of its brand DNA.

When heritage becomes optional.

David Jones is more than 180 years old. That alone doesn’t make it good - but it does mean the brand has accumulated something most retailers would kill for: deep, multi-generational memory structures.

And nowhere was that more visible than the Elizabeth Street Christmas windows in Sydney. For more than 70 years, those windows have done one simple but powerful job: remind Australians that David Jones is Christmas. Parents saw them. Their parents saw them. Kids were dragged in front of them, year after year, whether they liked it or not.

This year, they were gone. Replaced with promotional displays pushing the store’s loyalty program. Functional retail comms, masquerading as festive storytelling.

And the backlash was immediate.

The Sydney press lit up. Social feeds followed. Customers - young and old - were confused, disappointed, and in some cases genuinely annoyed. Not because David Jones “cancelled Christmas” - it didn’t - but because it dialled it down so far it barely registered. The result was oddly hollow. Subdued. Slightly embarrassing. And most of all: completely unnecessary.

The real problem wasn’t the decision - it was the thinking.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t about nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. Retail brands evolve. Traditions change. Budgets get cut. Fine. The issue is that the decision appeared:

• Poorly communicated.

• Strategically incoherent.

• And wildly out of step with what department stores actually need right now.

If you’re a department store in 2025, your problem is not awareness. It’s foot traffic. Christmas windows are not a cost - they are a traffic acquisition device. A physical algorithm that pulls families into the city, into the store, and into the habit of visiting you.

So when a brand with shrinking relevance voluntarily removes one of the few remaining reasons to show up… people notice. And they don’t like it.

Meanwhile, at Myer…

While David Jones was busy explaining itself, Myer was doing the opposite. It leaned in. Hard.

Melbourne’s Myer windows were bold, theatrical, and unmistakably festive. Light projections turned the CBD into a stage. The store didn’t whisper Christmas - it shouted it.

And then inside there was Santaland. Not a token activation. Not a half-hearted photo-op. A fully realised, immersive experience that actually gave families a reason to come in, stay longer, and remember why Myer still matters.

So who won Christmas?

A caveat before the verdict. We didn’t visit every store. But we visited the important ones. And more importantly, we spoke to customers - on the ground, in real life, not via sentiment dashboards or brand trackers. And the contrast was stark.

David Jones felt cautious. Defensive. Slightly apologetic.

Myer felt confident. Present. Unapologetically festive.

On that basis, Myer won Christmas 2025. Not because it was louder - but because it understood the assignment.

Why this actually matters

From an experiential retail perspective, this isn’t a fluffy argument about tinsel and tradition. Christmas is one of the last moments where physical retail still has a structural advantage over online. You cannot replicate shared rituals, civic theatre, or childhood memory formation through a homepage takeover.

When retailers forget that, they don’t just lose a season. They erode brand meaning. And brand meaning, once gone, is painfully hard to rebuild.

The lesson from Christmas 2025 is simple: You don’t win by being efficient. You win by being felt.

And this year, only one of these two department stores seemed to remember that.