Deptford Mall’s Christmas House is nostalgic and irreverent with Harry Potter, Blockbuster, and a room full of reindeer poop
Guests say a main draw is enjoying a holiday attraction indoors, away from the cold.
The region is brimming with holiday attractions this season, from Center City’s extravagant affairs to the most humble of mall Santas.
But what about ones that skirt tradition and lean more into the humorous than the Yuletide?
Christmas House at the Deptford Mall combines nostalgia with irreverence for one of the region’s most tongue-in-cheek holiday experiences.
Stepping into the former Victoria’s Secret-turned-holiday walking tour, guests are greeted by familiar faces like Buddy the Elf and Santa Claus, but they’ll also see a recreation of a Blockbuster video store; a drunk, passed-out Santa; and a reindeer stable where it looks like Donner and Blitzen pooped all over the place.
Starting at $25 per person, when buying in groups of four, there are at least nine rooms — not including the seven wacky “hotel rooms” in the back — within the Christmas House to explore at your own leisure or alongside a tour guide. Ticket prices may prove too burdensome for many families, owner Peter Coyle said, which is why they offer a “No Families Left Out” program, where families can contact the Christmas House and discuss a name-your-price model.
Coyle said the humor is meant to make adults laugh just as much as kids — hence why so much space is dedicated to nostalgia of the 1980s and ‘90s. Apart from a Blockbuster, which children certainly haven’t visited before, there are Easter eggs only adults will recognize, such as A Christmas Story’s sultry leg lamp — “Fragilé! It must be Italian” — and Red Ryder BB gun or a Griswold family photo from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
“We take the same approach as the creators of the Shrek movies,” Coyle said. “[Those movies] had a lot of fun things that kids loved, but then there were all these innuendoes and references that only adults could appreciate.”
Walking into the Blockbuster room for the first time, adults let out a light chuckle that usually turns into some play-pretend as they reminisce on their former Friday night ritual, while teens who never got the chance to visit one can pretend they’re a ’90s kid for a change, Coyle said. It’s a pared-down Blockbuster with only four shelves of movies, but the store decorations and logos are close enough to feel like a cute homage.
Rita Giordano, 42, of South Jersey, was visiting the Christmas House with her mother, Denise Maloney, 70, and Giordano’s two sons, Richie, 9, and Charlie, 4. Together, they searched for Buddy the Elf hidden in each room.
“We got all of them!” Richie and Charlie said.
For mom and grandma, they were just happy to be enjoying the holiday spirit inside the Deptford Mall as opposed to the bone-chilling weather at outdoor attractions.
The Christmas House’s wackiest elements are sequestered in the back, where Coyle converted the former fitting rooms of the retail space into the hotel rooms of the “Holiday’s Inn.” The sheer surprise of finding out what’s behind each door will have some bursting out laughing and others rolling their eyes.
There are tamer rooms like the “Hootel Room” — filled with artificial trees and owls — to a New Year’s Eve strobe-light room. But a few backrooms go the extra mile, with one featuring Shrek taking a nap in a small bed, bundled up in Christmas and Shrek blankets.
In “The Santa’s Little Surprise” room, the limits of guests’ potty humor will be tested. As soon as one walks up to the room, a large handprint and streak of brown substance are streaked across the door. The more one looks, the more fake reindeer poop plastered to the walls and flooring can be found, with used toilet paper strung from the ceiling.
Santa’s got his work cut out for him.
But for parents trying to keep the Santa make-believe alive for a few more years, they may find the drunk Santa sprawled on the floor in the “The Sleighed and Sloshed” room a little too over the top. Here, a Santa mannequin is laid out on the floor with crushed red Solo cups around him in what looks like Chris Kringle after a bender.
There is good, clean fun in the Harry Potter Christmas Room, where a photo-op is staged with a broomstick, wizarding hats, and Hogwarts House-themed scarves. Venture into the Elf Command Center, where a Santa live tracker displays where Chris Kringle is currently dropping off gifts, and the little ones can write letters to Santa before dropping them in the giant mailbox marked for the North Pole.
The North Pole Movie Theater is usually playing Will Ferrell’s Elf on repeat throughout the day, and the final room features cotton snowballs, ready for harmless snowball fights, accompanied by an artificial snow machine.
“The best part for me was that it was indoors,” Maloney said. “The kids loved seeing Jack Skellington and the Grinch, plus they got me with the snowballs in the last room.”
Located inside the Deptford Mall at 1750 Deptford Center Rd., Deptford, N.J. 08096, the Christmas House is on the first floor, closest to the Boscov’s entrance and parking. Open weekdays from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. It runs through Jan. 2.