Profit in Season for Christmas-Themed Businesses

Even as consumers deck the halls, businesses linked to the holidays have more on their minds than Christmas spirit. They have two months to make a year’s worth of revenue.

From holiday decorators to chestnut farmers, almost a third of small retailers depend on holiday revenue to stay afloat, according a FedEx survey of retailers.The holiday business is no sleigh ride, says Ronald Friedman, audit principal of accounting firm Kaufman, Rossin.

For many specialty businesses, sales logged between Thanksgiving and Christmas can mean a year of great success or dismal failure. “One week in the life of a Christmas business is like six or seven weeks in the life of a regular business,” says Friedman. “If sales are off for four days, that’s like sales being off an entire month in a regular business.”

Waiting for Christmas:

• Decking the halls. Clay Storseth runs The Christmas Decorator half the year in Los Angeles so he can be an actor in New York the other half. He says his company does up to 70 displays a year for customers including the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital and hotels such as the Peninsula Beverly Hills, the Fairmont Miramar and the Montage in Beverly Hills. “I really love Christmas, and I really enjoy doing that job, but when I’m doing it all the time, I feel like I’m living (my customer’s) life instead of living mine,” says Storseth.
• Roasting on an open fire. Leslie Sowers-Winkel, co-owner of Winkel Chestnut Farms, says most people are surprised to know chestnut season is in September and October, long before the popular holiday song featuring the roasting nut makes its way across radio airwaves. Fortunately, by winter, there are almost always plenty of nuts in storage for folks who want them for the holidays, says Sowers-Winkel. To keep the farm running, she and her husband, Dick, run a chestnut tree nursery, which keeps them busy year-round.
• Fruitcakes. Craig Sonksen owns Grandma’s Fruit Cakes, which sells the dense, bourbon-scented cakes at The Sisters Sweet Shoppe in Dublin, Ohio, run by his wife, Melissa. The fruitcakes and other goodies sell mostly during the holidays, and it’s really his other business, Crazy Richard’s Peanut Butter, that keeps him in the black, says Sonksen.
• O Tannenbaum. Sandy Kalnasy owns Dusty Oak Ornaments in Benton, La., maker of premium handmade Christmas tree ornaments. She makes money in the off-season by selling Mardi Gras-theme ornaments and making custom ornaments for weddings. She says she never gets tired of Christmas. “Christmas is always on my mind, and I have a lot of people who laugh at me because I use a lot of fabrics and materials that have glitter, so I’m always dusted in glitter,” says Kalnasy. “I just always have the holiday sparkle.”

Read about Christmas-themed businesses in USA Today.