LSU earns high marks in final season report card
December 11, 2012
Retail wars turn into savings for shoppers
December 11, 2012
While most people wait until just after Thanksgiving to decorate their homes for Christmas, some people are bringing in designers as early as All Souls Day to decorate their houses. Either way, the holiday season has many decorators and florists seeing green.
“Some customers want us decorating the week before Halloween,” said Houma’s Periwinkle Pink owner Lauren Adams. “They want us there as soon as possible because they know we book up fast, and they are not bothered by having their decorations up early. Some people book us a year in advance, but we try to keep some open spots for new customers.”
Adams’ business specializes in seasonal wreaths, swags and arrangements, and her four designers also make house calls to decorate staircases, trees, mantles, doorways and various home interiors. The company even hosts an open house at the end of each September to begin taking appointments for the coming holiday season.
“We decorate anything and everything you want us to decorate,” Adams said. “We once decorated a houseboat.”
Houseboats – and regular houses – run about $35 an hour for decorating with the client’s own decorations, plus the cost of any items the homeowner may want from the store. Decorated trees range from $400 to $1,500, depending on size, if a whole tree needs to be decorated and the client’s taste. Wreaths run about $90 to $160, arrangements, about $150 to $300, and door decorations cost anywhere from $500 to $900.
“One of our customers spent $1,500 on her door this year, but she adds to it every year,” she said.
The business’ biggest job is decorating a three-story Christmas tree at a local business.
“I have to get in a cherry picker to decorate that tree,” Adams said, laughing. “We’ve been doing that tree for three years, and we have streamlined the decorating process from three days to one and a half.”
Smaller jobs such as putting together a wreath or arrangement only take about 45 minutes, while doors and trees can take anywhere from two to four hours.
“Candy canes are very popular this year, and red, green and gold decorations are, too,” Adams said. “We are also getting a lot of customers asking for a modern woodsy look using burlap, pinecones, crystal and flowers.”
The company has been outfitting homes for the holiday season for six years, and this year each of Adams’ designers helped decorate about 40 homes. The store has also sold about 30 trees.
“We don’t get too many requests for tree decorating jobs,” Adams said. “Most people are confident enough to do their own trees, but not their doors.”
Christmas is Periwinkle Pink’s busiest time of the year, but the company also sees spikes in business at other times of the year.
“We will be putting our Mardi Gras stuff out in the store soon,” she said. “We decorate the same things – wreaths, arrangements, doors, homes and trees – in Mardi Gras themes.”
For Celeste Landry, owner of Just for You Flowers in Houma, decorating for Christmas runs in her blood.
“My mom’s mom decorated, my mom decorates and my sister and I both decorate,” Landry said. “I collect penguins, and my mom collects Santas. She has over 800. We all go overboard with the inside of our houses.”
Each year, Landry decorates anywhere from five to 10 homes, and calls for her services start rolling in around September. The average home takes Landry about three hours to decorate and, at about $85 an hour, most jobs cost around $250.
“Most homeowners want me to come in and decorate with things they already have, but sometimes we will add new ribbons or ornaments if anything needs replacing,” Landry said. “We do indoors and outdoors – doors, patios, mantles, trees, depending on what the customer wants done.”
Like Adams, Landry also designs mantle pieces, wreaths and garland for her clients.
“I did a door once that took three hours,” Adams said. “It was huge. Everything you could imagine in Christmas decorations was on this swag. I had to separate all the decorations – bells, balls, six or seven different kinds of ribbon – out in the yard.”
This year, Landry said many or her clients are asking for musical or silver and blue, snowy looking spreads for their homes. In the five years she has been decorating, incorporating a client’s collection of dolls and figurines from around the world is the decorator’s favorite commission.
“It was a joy to unwrap and see each unique item,” she said. “I love to see everyone’s different decorations and ornaments. I am blessed to see this part of people’s lives. Each home I decorate has a little something special that I like. I guess that’s why I decorate.”
Landry also enjoys the feedback she gets from her customers, especially those who are not around when she is working.
“I start some homes before Thanksgiving, when people leave town for the holiday weekend,” Landry said. “They get home and see their house all decorated. They call me and tell me ‘I stood back to look at it, and it’s so beautiful’ or ‘I have no talent and could never have done that’ or ‘You made my Christmas.’ It feels great. Christmas is the most magical time of the year.”
Green Acres Nursery and Christmas Store owner Dennis Bayhi has more than two decades of holiday decorating under his belt. And this holiday season is off to a busy start.
“We start putting up our decorated artificial trees in July,” Bayhi said. “We’ve got 16 trees, ranging from Santa trees and Mardi Gras-themed trees to LSU and Saints trees. We have a beautiful Saints tree this year. All the trees are very tasteful.”
Decorated Christmas trees from Green Acres Nursery and Christmas Store can cost up to $1,500, but each tree is built – and decorated – to last.
“The ornaments and décor are wired to the tree, not hung,” he said. “Most people keep the same tree for a few years and then call us to redecorate it when they want to switch things up.”
Each tree takes Bayhi’s staff about a day to decorate but, like Adams’ three-story tree, repetition helps “s-tree-mline” the process.
“Sometimes a customer will want a duplicate of the tree, so it’s a little faster the second time around,” Bayhi said. “But we want everyone’s product to be different. We don’t want someone walking into someone else’s house and seeing the same decoration design.”
In addition to selling pre-decorated trees, Green Acres also designs door pieces, wreathes, arrangements, mantle decorations and swags. Swags run about $125 to $200, and mantle pieces cost about $200.
“We shipped four trees this year, but we mostly do door and mantle pieces,” he said. “Elves are very popular for mantles right now, and we also did one with a row of little lit Christmas trees.”
Bayhi gets requests for commissions before Halloween, and the business has already fulfilled several hundred orders for wreaths, swags and door and mantle pieces this year.
“Everybody is happy with their finished product,” Bayhi said. “I never have had any complaints of ‘That’s not what I wanted.’ Many say that the arrangements came out better than clients imagined. Nobody is grumpy. It’s the holidays. People walk in, see a tree and love it.”
Periwinkle Pink decorator Angela Boudreaux secures a swag to the door frame of a house in Houma. As a decorator, Boudreaux also decorates mantles and stairwells.
