HALLELUJAH!
At last a self less shopkeeper who recognises the TRUE spirit of the season – as he closes his toy stores on Christmas Eve even though the lost sales will cost him £2 MILLION
AS TEEMING crowds scramble for last-minute gifts, tills will be jingling at stores across Britain on Christmas Eve – with one notable exception.
The Entertainer, the country’s largest independent toy store, will be keeping the doors of all 149 of its branches firmly closed, because its founder is a devout Christian.
Gary Grant refuses to open on Sundays – even on December 24, when the decision will cost his company more than £2 million in sales. But he believes that giving his 1,700 staff Sundays off helps strengthen family life, which, he says is already ‘under attack enough’.
He said: ‘I have given the concept of one day in seven as a day of rest a lot of thought and I am not making an exception just because it is Christmas Eve.
‘I value families. I have four children and six grandchildren. I employ a lot of parents, grandparents, uncles and aunties. It is convenient that everybody has the same day off, that parents can be off at the same time as their children.’
Mr Grant, 59, said he was not aware of any other shops being closed on Christmas Eve – when experts expect shoppers to spend a total of £1billion – but he was prepared to pay the price.
He said: ‘I have the best staff in the high street. If that is the cost of thanking them for a hard season’s work, well that is the cost.’
Mr Grant says he tries to apply Christian values to every aspect of his business, giving away ten per cent of his profits to charity in line with biblical teaching and refusing to stock items linked to the occult, which includes Halloween witches’ costumes and Harry Potter merchandise.
Mr Grant accepted he would be criticised for his decision to stay closed on Christmas Eve, saying: ‘The toy industry is so reliant on Christmas: if you didn’t have Christmas you wouldn’t have a toy industry. So there is a fine line between running a viable business that gets caught up in the commerciality of the season, but on the other hand not losing the real meaning of Christmas.
‘I know that if I do what I do with the right motive, I can rely on the fact that God will honour that. Keeping the Sabbath holy is one of the Ten Commandments, so I feel I shouldn’t be opening the doors.’
Mr Grant, who left school with one O-level, began his business in 1981 after taking over a local shop in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. The company now makes almost £9million a year profit on sales of £150million.
However, this is the first time that Christmas Eve has fallen on a Sunday since 2006, when the retailer had fewer than half of the 149 stores it has now. Mr Grant, who became a Christian in 1991, said: ‘People have said, “What, even with Christmas Eve being a Sunday, you’re closed?” And I say, “Well, what’s the difference? The principle is a day of rest.” Staff may well be working six days a week, and long days. They need a break.’
He said that on Christmas Eve he would be attending church in London as usual before helping his wife prepare for Christmas Day.
The Entertainer chain – which has branches across Scotland including in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Inverness and Dunfermline – is part of the Keep Sunday Special campaign alongside shopworkers’ union Usdaw, which has praised Mr Grant’s decision.
A spokesman said: ‘Staff in retail work very long hours in the run-up to Christmas. Our members tell us they need time off to recuperate as well as to spend time with their family and friends. That is especially important when they have children.’ Mr Grant’s stand comes amid concern that Christianity is being marginalised at Christmas, with cards or advent calendars featuring the nativity story increasingly hard to find. Some stores have been keen to avoid the term ‘Christmas’ as it is too closely associated with one religion, while in the past, councils have come under fire for rebranding Christmas events under names such as ‘Winterval’.
‘Family life is under attack enough’