We only have a few days left to get all the Christmas shopping sorted.
So to help you get your life in order, we’ve pulled together key opening times for supermarkets in Manchester over the holidays.
Many are running extended opening hours in the run-up to the big day, followed by shorter hours and closures on some big holidays, and this is particularly apparent on Boxing Day, when many more supermarkets will shut to give their staff a break after a turbulent couple of years.
Bear in mind that all of these are subject to change and should be checked on each supermarket’s website.
Here’s everything you need to know.
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Aldi
Credit: Aldi UK & Ireland
Monday 20 – Thursday 23 December: 7am – 10pm
Christmas Eve: 7am – 6pm
Christmas Day & Boxing Day: Closed
Monday 27 – Thursday 30 December: 8am – 10pm
New Year’s Eve: 8am – 6pm
New Year’s Day: Closed
Sunday 2 January: 9:30am – 4pm
Monday 3 January: 8am – 8pm
You can check your local store’s opening times on the Aldi website here.
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Tesco
Credit: Geograph
Tesco has plans to keep over 370 of its large stores open for 24 hours a day over the Christmas period in the run-up for Christmas Day.
Between 20 December and Christmas Eve, hundreds of stores will be open at all hours to help shoppers get their shopping done before the big day, but opening hours may vary by store – with customers advised to use the store locator to find specific opening times.
However, Tesco has said all its stores will close at 7pm on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, with the exception of Express stores, which will remain open until 10pm on both dates.
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All of the chain’s stores will close on Christmas Day and all Tesco Extra stores and superstores will keep to Sunday opening hours on Boxing Day – with most Express stores open from 9am to 7pm on 26 December.
On New Year’s Day, most stores will be open between 8am to 6pm, except for its Express stores, which will close at 10pm.
You can check opening times via the Tesco Store Locator here.
Sainsbury’s
Credit: Sainsbury’s
Christmas Eve: 6am – 7pm
Christmas Day & Boxing Closed
Monday 27 & Tuesday 28 December: 8am – 8pm
Wednesday 29 & Thursday 30 December: 7am – 9pm
New Year’s Eve: 7am – 7pm
New Years Day: 9am – 7pm
You can check opening times via the Sainsbury’s Store Locator here.
M&S
All Marks & Spencer stores will open from 6am between 20 – 23 December, then on Christmas Eve, some stores will remain open until 8pm.
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All Marks & Spencer stores will close on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
You can check your local store’s opening times on the M&S website here.
Madness announce huge Manchester gig on upcoming UK tour
Daisy Jackson
Madness are heading back out on a tour of the UK with their Hits Parade tour, including a stop in Manchester.
The beloved British band, famed for hits like Baggy Trousers, House of Fun, and One Step Beyond, are heading to the AO Arena this winter.
Madness will be kicking the tour off in Sheffield on 4 December, before heading across a 13-date-strong arena tour.
They’ll be joined by Squeeze on all dates, who were huge throughout the 1990s, and again since reuniting in 2007.
The tour has been announced to celebrate their biggest hits of their career, which spans almost five decades.
In 2023, Madness achiever their first-ever UK number one studio album, with Theatre of the Absurd Presents C’est La Vie – though before that, they already had an impressive 10 top 10 albums.
Madness also have multiple awards, including an Ivor Novello, and performed as part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee celebrations.
The show promises to be ‘live, loud, and full of heart’.
Speaking on the new tour, Madness said: “We are going to be parading through your town soon… bearing glittering hits of all shapes and sizes, everyone welcome.”
The Wombats at AO Arena, Manchester – the noughties indie disco never REALLY died
Daisy Jackson
If at some point in your life you sported an extreme side-swept fringe, knee-high socks, and a battered leather jacket you scoured the vintage shops for for months, you know what it means to have a noughties indie disco come to town – and that indie disco is courtesy of one of the genre’s greats, The Wombats.
The Liverpool three-piece were at the AO Arena in Manchester on Saturday evening, in support of their sixth studio album Oh! The Ocean.
The hair’s calmed down a lot (they were the MASTERS of whipping their ‘do all the way back from the crown of their head to their eyebrows) but the energy of The Wombats has done the opposite.
For a relatively chill indie band they’ve got a reputation for causing widespread mosh pits, and Manchester delivers them in spades.
It’s not just your regular elbow-to-the-face, lose-your-mates-for-a-bit, risk-your-ribcage moshpits either. At one point hundreds of people sit on the floor and pretend to row a giant, grimy boat. At another point there’s a confusing moment where three pits all congregate and everyone stares at each other for a split second before letting loose again.
They’ve got a lot of music to get through in the two decades they’ve been together, but it’s the debut stuff that has a weird effect on all the 30-somethings in the crowd.
Kill The Director, Moving to New York and Let’s Dance to Joy Division are all the sort of songs that transcend grimy basement nightclub all the way to the UK’s best arena with the same frenetic energy.
The Wombats have also pulled together one of the strongest support line-ups seen in recent years, which in turn pulls in one of the busiest standing sections I’ve ever seen, from the minute the doors open.
First is Red Rum Club, our pals from across the way in Liverpool, with their signature indie sound elevated by trumpet player Joe the Blow.
Then it’s over to local lads Everything Everything, in their matching acid-washed denim and art rock hits.
As for The Wombats – it’s not every artist who can get the goosebumps going within the first two songs – but chucking in Moving To New York as your second song will do just that.
Say what you want about the scousers but their comedic timing is unmatched too, whether it’s ribbing each other on stage or stressing that the lyrics of their song are ‘getting college girl drunk, not college girls drunk – a very important difference’.
There are, including vocals, eight instruments between three of them. Most would summon some sessions musicians, but not The Wombats.
They’re rock solid as a trio, but the whole show is carried along by their urge for playfulness – from the stage invasion by wombat mascots carrying confetti cannons, to dropping giant colourful balloons from the sky as they wrap up the night with Greek Tragedy.
There’s something pretty memorable about the sight of people determinedly carrying a gigantic pink balloon overhead onto the tram.
The Manc -
20th December 2021 
