Business

Christmas Tree Shops preparing to file for bankruptcy, report says

The now national home goods retailer started on Cape Cod in the 1950s as a gift shop.

Christmas Tree Shops
John Tlumacki / The Boston Globe, File

By Dialynn Dwyer

Christmas Tree Shops may be going the way of its former parent company, Bed Bath & Beyond. 

The Middleborough, Massachusetts-based discount home goods store is preparing to file for bankruptcy as soon as this weekend, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Christmas Tree Shops, which has 83 brick-and-mortar stores across the country, has hired Boston-based law firm Murphy & King to prepare the potential Chapter 11 filing, according to the Journal. 

The beloved New England chain traces its origins to Cape Cod, where it was started in the 1950s in a Yarmouth Port barn as an all things Christmas gift shop that was only open May through October for summer vacationers, according to Good Housekeeping. The original location consists of three buildings, the reason for “shops” plural in its name, and by 1970, new owners expanded the offerings beyond ornaments and gifts. 

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Bed Bath & Beyond bought Christmas Tree Shops in 2003 and expanded it nationwide.

Bed Bath & Beyond, which filed for bankruptcy in April, sold the company in 2020 to Handil Holdings, owned by entrepreneurs Marc Salkovitz and Pam Salkovitz, according to the Journal.

Massachusetts has 15 locations of the store, the most outlets for the retailer, according to the Christmas Tree Shops website.

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