Most reports say consumers will spend money this season and in fact will spend more than they did last year, but they still are looking for the best deals and pride themselves on being wise shoppers. One such report, Brand Keys, says while clothing and fashion accessories remain the top gift given, 21% of respondents plan to spend money on decorative home items. Of all surveyed, 38% will shop specialty stores, 55% traditional department stores, 75% discount department stores, 60% online and 45% catalogs.

We talked to several retailers across the country to get an idea of the ins and outs of the season from a behind-the-scenes perspective: Shelly Dozier-Mckee, co-owner The Scarlet Tassel, Atlanta; Margaret Cohen, co-owner Elegant Clutter, Danville, Calif.; Ruth and David Messmer, Smith Beautiful Living, Greensboro, N.C.; Melissa Gordon, Claxton's Gifts, Houston; Bill Fortson, co-owner, BJ's Home Accents, Newburgh, Ind.; Tammy LeFever, Interior Motives, Tigard, Ore.; Charlotte Gorenberg, Seldom Seen Gallery, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Steve Lauterbach Stratford, Stratford Court Fine Furniture, Antiques and Design, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Mitch Bobkin, Domain Home Fashions, Norwood, Mass.; and Sandra Daniels, Robb & Stucky, Boca Raton, Fla.

Scarlet Tassel

We shop in January and February in Atlanta and New York. With sales performances fresh in our mind, we are able to make solid purchasing decisions for the upcoming season. Purchasing early allows us to take advantage of the dating programs many manufacturers offer on holiday product. We have ample storage space and can take receipt of product early in the year and have it received and ticketed far before the season begins.

Elegant Clutter

We use the January show to formulate our holiday floor plan. We place all orders for ornaments and any holiday collections we plan on featuring. We flush out our holiday merchandise in July when the smaller vendors bring out their collections. Each holiday tree has to have viable ornaments and related holiday/non-holiday entertaining accessories to support the theme.

BJ's

We buy for the holidays year around. Our first buy is in January in Dallas, with another big buy in June in Dallas. Since we are in a "home" setting, each room of the home is set with furniture typical to that room. The decorations are done in grand style and very heavy to magnify that room's particular furniture and accessories.

Stratford Court

We buy in July for Christmas; we just can't bring ourselves to get back into it in January.

Domain

Some of our holiday items get bought 10 or 11 months in advance (Jan and Feb) because they have to be sourced. Other items can be bought in June or July — if you purchase any later you take the chance of getting cut off. This is equally true for trim and accessories.

Scarlet Tassel

The first week of October. Many of our customers begin asking about holiday product in mid-September and if they are looking for something special that we know we have in the back room, we will give them a private showing and sell product even before it hits the floor.

Smith Beautiful Living

Holiday merchandise starts hitting the floor in August with Halloween and fall displays and rolls on through Thanksgiving and into Christmas.

Claxton's Gifts

Usually by Sept 10. It takes about 3–4 weeks to get the store decorated.

BJ's

The Tuesday after Labor Day. First we move all of the furniture and get the basic set-up going as to where the trees will be placed. From that point the store becomes a total wreck and it is difficult to carry on with daily walk-ins, but they know what is to come and are excited to know it is happening. Of course we always hear comments, "Christmas already?," but we explain it takes that long to be ready for the first of November. However, at the same time we catch them digging in boxes for the latest Christmas arrivals.

Stratford Court

Our staff starts unpacking, pricing and organizing September 1st and our designers begin the placement and displays on October 1st and finish on October 30th.

Domain

We start setting up for holiday just after Halloween... which is later than some stores do. However, October is a big month for us and we don't want to disrupt our stores when business is still strong.

Scarlet Tassel

We hold our Holiday Open House in early November and offer free holiday decorating workshops as well as vendor trunk shows. Our in-house decorator is also on hand to answer customer questions and provide holiday decorating tips.

Smith Beautiful Living

We do fall decorating seminars, a holiday open house and seminars and special sales events. We just completed a series of four TV commercials for a local station in which we give decorating tips and the news station is going to have those tips listed on its Web site as well.

Elegant Clutter

Our traditional Harvest and Holiday Open House is the second weekend in October. We celebrate with champagne, food, door prizes and live music with a flamenco jazz guitarist. This year customers found 12 dazzling trees, great gifts, imaginative decorations, unique ornaments, fun stocking stuffers, intriguing hostess gifts, adventurous table settings for the holiday season and also non-seasonal home accents. We sent out direct mail to 17,855 customers. We use our customer profile tracking system on our POS software to pinpoint the customers that made a purchase of a single item of $25 or more from 9-1-03 thru 9-1-04, elected to give us their contact info and also reside in our trade area. Our sales were up 400% over the prior weekend. We increased sales 10% over the same weekend 2003. We use stanchions (just like Disneyland) to help contain the line. The 2003 line at the maximum from 11:15 to 2:15 was a 45-minute wait. In comparison, the 2004 line at the max from 10:40 to 3:30 was a 60-minute wait. We expected our sales to be up even more with the additional wait but we also found that customers had left 30 to 40 filled baskets in the store because of the long line.

Claxton's Gifts

We had a Russian Santa and Icon show. Houston and some other Texas cities have started a Holiday Shopping Card. Customers purchase this card for $60 and all of that money goes to the American Cancer Society. The card works for 10 days (Oct. 21 – 31, this year) and during those 10 days the customer gets 20% off every purchase. Stores that participate can choose to have exclusions on certain merchandise. Everybody wins, the Cancer Society gets a huge influx of donations, customers are saving during a busy shopping time and stores win with a huge increase in October sales.

BJ's

We are big believers in how the holidays help business. This is our 26th Christmas at BJ's and from year one we've had an elaborate holiday open house the first weekend in November. We have just completed our best open house weekend. We sold everything from holiday trim to accessories, furniture, wall decor, rugs and basically anything else we stock. People are truly missing the best advertising tool they could do if they are not capitalizing on this. The only advertising we have done is direct mail advertising to our customer base and signage out front. Aside from the public open house we usually have had an evening party with entertainment and fancy catering for our top 150 clients a couple of days before the open house.

Interior Motives

We have holiday seminars and an open house. The seminars are Tree Tips 2004: How to decorate your tree like the professionals; Light up the Holidays: Incorporate candles and make your own centerpieces and Glorious Galas and Spectacular Soirees: Ideas for spectacular table dressings. We can seat 50 at a seminar and they sell out within two weeks.

Seldom Seen

We have Christmas on Las Olas the 1st Tuesday after Thanksgiving. This event closes the street. It is a 20-plus year event for the community with Santa Claus, a snow mountain (strange for Florida), school groups singing, community choirs singing, bell ringers etc. This brings hundreds of people onto our street and into our gallery.

Stratford Court

Our Annual Christmas Gala is always the first Friday in November. We typically expect 500 to 600 of our best customers to show up. We serve an elaborate buffet with shrimp, poached salmon, pork tenderloin with honey mustard sauce, etc., and continue events over the weekend. We go over the top decorating and selling Christmas.

Domain

We're having a special thank you evening for our loyal customers. They're invited to bring a guest and enjoy holiday recipes prepared on the Aga cooker and learn about wine pairing. For that night only they also receive 15% off purchases plus an extra $50 off with their invitation.

Robb & Stucky

This season we're having an exclusive sneak preview of Florida Grand Opera's 64th season at our Boca Raton store, complete with dining and performances by stars from the opera's young artist studio. We have tabletop vignettes throughout the store showcasing our designer's interpretations of each of the operas of the coming season like Madame Butterfly, Paul Bunyan, Lucia de Lammermoor, The Magic Flute and A Masked Ball. We also do five seminars in November on everything from gift wrapping techniques and tabletop ideas to holiday decorating and a Sweet Dreams trunk show.

Elegant Clutter

The fourth quarter is the best for retailing home accessories but the three other quarters each have a spike because of a scheduled furniture sale. Our fourth quarter accounts for 30% of our annual sales.

BJ's

Fourth quarter is tremendous for us; not only for the ornaments and trim, but we have educated customers to give decorative accessories for gifts rather than the yesteryear "trinkets." We also sign up several home installations at this time from people coming to shop for Christmas and seeing furniture and accessories they want for their own homes. This happened just yesterday from a lady that had just moved to our area from Florida. She saw the sign that we were having Holiday Open House, stopped to see the decor and while I was trying to introduce myself and make a new friend out of her I told her about our design services. She has already contracted us to furnish her new home after the holidays. This one case will add several thousand dollars to next year's business, all because she was shopping Christmas and had no idea what we were about all year long. As you can tell, we are truly sold on doing the holiday thing. I have heard many times that many furniture stores, big boxes in particular, say that November and December are their slowest months. Quite the contrary here!

Interior Motives

Normally yes...but this year has been a wild ride. So we are just riding the wave...we'll see what happens.

Domain

No, as a furniture store our business tends to happen slightly earlier in the season than for full-line retailers. Our peak tends to be earlier (September) than people who are full line retailers who are depending on the holiday season for sales and profitability.

Scarlet Tassel

We offer ornaments and tree decor, wreaths and garland, holiday linens such as runners, tree-skirts, pillows and rugs, tabletop decor such as festive dinnerware, wine/bar accessories and candleholders, holiday wall decor like plaques with seasonal quotes and verses and a range of gift items.

Elegant Clutter

We carry holiday ornaments and miscellaneous seasonal merchandise, pillows, books, potpourri, linens, throws, candles, floral and ceramics. Our ornaments account for 30% of our holiday buy. We try to have ornaments in the $8 to $25 range.

Claxton's Gifts

Christmas florals and home decorations, such as centerpieces and candles. A variety of ornaments, Lynn Haney Santas, Russian hand-painted Santas, and some Christmas tabletop items like china and linens.

BJ's

We carry everything from inexpensive to expensive ornaments, permanent Christmas trees and the greens and flowers to go along with the look, ribbons, candles, Lynn Haney Santas, Mark Roberts Christmas fairies, etc.

Interior Motives

We decorate about six trees and sell trees and ornaments. Since we manufacture our own silk floral we do special arrangements and wreaths. Larger and higher end holiday products do best for us because they are unusual and are unavailable elsewhere. This year we did a large tree in front of a bright lime green wall featuring Bernhardt's Talisi black bedroom furniture. The tree had orange and multicolored parrots on it and large lime green crystal butterflies, not your typical holiday colors but fun for tropical themes in the home. In our kitchen area where we feature nook tables and islands we showed red and white stripe with red and white polka dot, gingerbread men and star cookies on our tree with centerpieces and ornaments mostly from Winward.

Seldom Seen

We do not focus on Christmas themed items, rather items of a style and price point that will be attractive for holiday gift giving. We do sell large numbers of Christmas ornaments, however.

Stratford Court

We go for the unusual, as we do with our regular merchandise and home accents. Elaborate nativity sets, large garlands, lots of Santas and Santa fairies from Mark Roberts. Most of our purchases are from Mark Roberts and Jim Marvin.

Domain

This year we are showing silver and pewter trays, plates, decanter sets, mirrored candle sticks, and handpainted jewel boxes to name a few. These typically have done well for us. It supplies a level of sparkle and festivity in store but still relates to the function a furniture store offers its customers. We're not here to be selling holiday gifts, but more to enhance home environments with products that are functional, logical and still decorative.

Scarlet Tassel

We have two major color statements represented in the store this year, each with a fully decorated Christmas tree serving as the focal point. Our traditional look incorporates red and gold and the products are classic and timeless. Our whimsical statement is a reflection of our brand and incorporates our store colors of apple green, white and red. The items here are light-hearted, fun and festive.

Smith Beautiful Living

One of our themes this year is a gold and silver icy/frosty look and our hot theme is apple green and red, we can't keep it in stock. We also have a large Mark Roberts display, a Mardi Gras tree, a palm tree hung with ornaments and lots more.

Claxton's Gifts

Charles, the owner, has taken Spode Blue Room Collection and Spode mini collectibles and put them in a tree and decorated around them — imagine dinner plates, cups and saucers in the tree — it looks wonderful. We also have a Victorian/old fashion collectibles tree and musical instruments garland in the window as well as a Spode Woodland garland. Glass angels always work and this year we have some frosted fruit that attaches to lights, what a look!

BJ's

We do not really do themes. We decorate to enhance fabric colors on the furniture and to make that room setting look like a person's home could.

Interior Motives

Including our other themes mentioned we also show a large white and crystal theme using polar bears and snowmen with Alstate as the main vendor. We used real nine-foot crystal drop curtains behind the tree. In one area of the store where we are showing Bernhardt's Consulate collection we had a Zen holiday look using gold bamboo and deep burgundy velvet magnolias and the vendor featured was Art Frame Direct. They have fabulous large mirrors that look great with huge wreaths hanging in front of them. We also used products from Aldik. In the back of the store we had a Dr. Seuss theme featuring product from Raz and again from Bernhardt a luscious chocolate leather sectional, bright pillows from Shamiana with a bright periwinkle blue wall featuring contemporary art from Ariel of France.

Seldom Seen

We constructed snowmen to hold our Christmas ornaments and other Christmas-themed items and built a wooden Christmas tree whose "ornaments" are really shelves to hold merchandise. We also have a painting with lights that celebrates both Christmas and Hanukkah.

Stratford Court

This year our themes are White Christmas, Traditional Christmas and Religious Christmas.

Domain

This holiday season we're doing several levels of trim in our stores — wreaths and swags of roses mixed with evergreen, a della robbia fruit motif and frosted conical holiday trees. We find that these items sell well and give the store a decorated look for this time of year.

Robb & Stucky

We have several different trees throughout the store. There's a silver tree, a burgundy and gold with angels, a Mark Roberts fairy tree in bright red and gold, a pink Victorian tree and a wonderful tabletop scene that customers have really responded to.

While themes and merchandise mix varies among these retailers, all are firm believers in making the most of the season. They don't add extra services during the holidays because most offer free gift-wrapping, personal shopping, delivery or decorating services yearround. Scarlet Tassel does extend its hours during the holidays, Interior Motives offers an in-home tree decorating service and BJ's Home Accents does more personal shopping for men, but Charlotte Gorenberg from Seldom Seen Gallery summed it up best when she said, "We do all of those services every day; we just try to work faster during the season!"

Stratford Court Fine Furniture finishes its holiday displays at the end of October. This year's themes include White Christmas, Traditional Christmas and Religious Christmas.

Scarlet Tassel typically features one traditionally themed tree and one whimsical tree, like this one, decked out in the store's signature apple green color merged with red and white.

Seldom Seen Gallery offers a selection of gifts for Christmas and Hanukkah and though themes might tip their hats to tradition, they're achieved with an artist's eye and quirky twists, much like the store itself.

Christmas at Smith Beautiful Living is loaded with elegant gifts and accessories and displays that run the gamut from lush and traditional to fun and whimsical.

Interior Motives' take on Winter Wonderland features snow-loving penguins and an exquisitely decorated tree. This retailer offers in-home tree decorating as one of its special holiday services.

One popular theme this year is Winter Wonderland, though retailers have their own spin, this display from Smith Beautiful Living seems to epitomize the feel. Crystal covered trees, silver accents and bowls brimming with ornaments draw the eye.

BJ's Home Accents achieves a total home holiday transformation, and rather than focus on themes, this retailer decks the halls room by room as consumers would in their own homes. Filled with live and faux florals, decorative accents and furniture, trees, gifts and more, shoppers can't help getting into the Christmas spirit.

Though all the stores offer a choice for shoppers, from traditional to elegant and sophisticated, most also include a more offbeat look at the season. Here Smith Beautiful Living decorated a palm tree complete with a monkey tree topper and banana ornaments. The ornaments on this tree at Seldom Seen Gallery serve another purpose by featuring shelves laden with gift ideas.