Business Spotlight: Christmas Decor lights up homes for the holidays

Strands of forest-green garland, festive wreaths, glittering lights and bright red bows. Most people enjoy looking at Christmas decorations, but they don't enjoy putting them up or taking them down.

Now, a new business in Springfield is helping homeowners and business owners avoid the holiday hassle of decorating. Christmas Decor, which rents, sells and installs decorations for Christmas and other special events, has been busy since early October spreading Yuletide cheer at the homes of customers within a 60-mile radius of Springfield.

"Some customers just don't like getting up high on a ladder to string lights and hang Christmas decorations," said Aimee Dixon, manager of sales and operations. "Most of our customers, though, are busy professionals. We've done a lot of work in neighborhoods like Highland Springs, Millwood, Emerald Park, Spring Creek and Quail Creek."

Customers can choose from a variety of daytime decorations, such as wreaths, Christmas trees, garlands and bows. A variety of dazzling Christmas displays also are available, as well as colorful holiday banners.

Christmas Decor's crews install lights around the borders of roofs, windows and doors, and special architectural features. The crews also install ground lights and place lights on shrubs and trees.

"Trees are our specialty," Dixon said. "It takes a lot of work to do a tree right. Each branch needs to be wrapped with lights, but the results are spectacular. The trees we've done have been real show stoppers."

According to Dixon, special equipment is needed to properly install outdoor Christmas decorations. For example, house-mounted lights are installed using durable, noninvasive fasteners instead of nails or staples. Black-cap lights are used when framing windows and doors to achieve a more uniform appearance, and all of the lights are attached to a timer that turns them on automatically after dusk.

Christmas Decor can install a customer's existing Christmas decorations, or the customer can rent or buy the Christmas decorations provided by the company. American Christmas Lighting, a subsidiary wholesale supply company, provides the commercial-quality decorations sold by Christmas Decor. Customers who buy their supplies get free bulb replacement on all of their lights during the first season.

"Some people prefer to rent their decorations rather than buy them because decorations are trendy," Dixon said. "For example, icicle-style lighting is popular right now, but we're starting to see the market move toward swag lights and plastic neon lights."

Because every decorating job is customized, pricing is done on an individual basis. Every bid follows a set of guidelines established by the franchise, and the bid is broken down by item. This allows customers to pick and choose the decorative items and features they want so they can keep within their budgets.

To date, Christmas Decor's sales and installation jobs have ranged in price from $200 for a residential job to $4,000 for a commercial project. In addition to renting, selling and installing Christmas decorations, the company takes down the decorations it installs, with take-down prices running at 20 percent of the total installation cost.

Customers who elect to have Christmas Decor take down their decorations also have the option of having the company package and store them until the following year. Christmas Decor also will take down, package and store Christmas decorations installed by homeowners, business owners or other companies.

In addition to running Christmas Decor, Dixon also serves as the marketing and operations director for HouseMaster, a professional home inspection service. The Dixon family, which owns both businesses, started Christmas Decor to keep busy during the holiday season when residential home sales, and the demand for home inspections, decrease.

Currently, five employees from HouseMaster work at Christmas Decor and four additional employees work on the company's installation crews on a seasonal basis.

"We train all our of employees on safety issues because they work on ladders and get on top of roofs," Dixon said. "Originally, we thought safety issues would cause us the most problems, but as it's turned out, our biggest problem is trying to attract quality workers. The labor market is tight right now, and it's been hard to get quality employees who work well as part of a crew."

In the coming year, Dixon said she plans to focus on attracting more commercial customers. She's also planning to promote the company's other decorative services, which include lighting and decorating for outdoor weddings and for holidays such as the Fourth of July and Halloween.