Bargain hunters flocked to a garden center in Dauphiné today. Always offer high discount decoration items on Boxing Day, if customers help arrange the Christmas section.

The garden center is known locally for its large Christmas section, Umarweb Gelderland writes. As early as August, the company will start building 8,000 square meters of Christmas extravaganza.

“Every year it’s an enormous amount of work for us to clean up the huge Christmas display ourselves. Breaking down all the artificial Christmas trees and putting them in a box, for example, takes a lot of time,” says director Gerard Nesink. “So it’s good that our customers help us with that.”

So he was already busy at the store before 9 am this Boxing Day:

More security was called in to manage crowds of people.

“Madhouse; we almost had to fight over it,” said a couple, shouting “whoops,” squeezing through the crowd with their large artificial Christmas tree. “It normally costs €450 and now we get 40% off, so it’s worth it.”

“This was on the shelf and I thought ‘I’ll take it out right away,’” says the man gloatingly clutching a plastic deer, “then he can still go to the park tonight.”

“This is also the best day of the year for us,” says a shop employee who helps unpack the Christmas Village. “People who have really set their sights on a specific house that they don’t yet have in their collection and it’s no longer available can now take them out on their Christmas show here.”

A loose pizza chef goes with a boy. “I don’t have such a large collection yet, but I really wanted this one in my village at Christmas.”

Not everyone goes for the best deal. “We come here for the fun,” says two shoppers. “We do it every year, it’s kind of a tradition. Just a nice walk.”