A season of hope and devotion

By Jim Youngquist

[NOV. 22, 2000]  For many in retail businesses, the highest point of the year is the Christmas season, and the gateway to that season is this Thanksgiving weekend. While sales are brisk, and the profit potential is the highest for the year, monetary gain is seldom the real motivating factor behind their extraordinary efforts.

Many years ago now, in what seems like a prior lifetime, my wife and I were florists in a city up north. We owned our own tiny shop and worked hard all year, barely scraping by and not earning what most people called a living. As the seasons changed, we changed the décor of the shop in order to stock the floral designs and decorations that our customers would be attracted to. On Valentine’s Day we sold thousands of roses, on Mother’s Day hundreds of bouquets and arrangements. The work gearing up for those holidays was nothing compared to the great effort we put in getting ready for the Christmas season.

 

Christmas in our florist shop started sometime in July, when we began planning for the season. When we first began, this was a totally foreign concept to me. I am one of those last-minute Christmas guys (my wife says that still hasn’t changed). It was a well-known fact that if you got a Christmas card from me, it was addressed on Christmas Eve. I always purchased and wrapped all the gifts on Dec. 24. But a florist shop can’t be run like a guy’s Christmas. After Oct. 1, most of the wholesalers were already sold out on the choice decorations, Christmas plants, and seasonal flowers and greens. We found out our first year that after Thanksgiving there is nothing left. So I learned to think about Christmas during the heat of summer, when the florist shop was quiet and most people were on vacation.

 


[Brenda Brown fixes a bow for decoration at the Kickapoo Street Dollar Store.  She and her husband, Mitch, recently bought the business.]

We pored over catalogues, made phone calls and spent many hours on the road away from the shop. Our favorite thing about being florists was traveling to visit different supply houses, greenhouses and the studios of gift companies. We hunted for the best deals on the finest merchandise, made commitments well ahead of time and arranged many of our purchases prior to the first frost.

 

As florists are purchasing raw materials, they construct in their minds the arrangements they will design. They dream of the placement of flowers, bows and adorning materials for each decoration they will produce. And they imagine with great satisfaction how their tiny little shops will come alive with the beauty of the season. But purchasing is only the first step to getting ready for the Christmas season.

Florists are like most other retailers. The next thing you do to get ready for the Christmas season is to do a thorough cleaning. The only way to make a good presentation is to make a clean presentation. All the old merchandise is packed away or sold off at extraordinary sale prices to clear the way for holiday merchandise. Once the shelves are made bare and the floors are cleared, everything is cleaned up and made spotless. Everyone chipped in and slaved until the place shined. With all the shelves bare and devoid of merchandise, and the entire work of the season ahead, we realized this would be the time when the fainthearted would lose sight of their dreams and ambitions. Some might lower their sights or even abandon the lofty goal of being ready on time for the upcoming Christmas season. But florists and retailers who are truly devoted to their craft and have the highest goal in mind have a gleam in their eye as they set out to make everything right and ready.

 

 

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We spent what seemed to be thousands of hours making decorations, arrangements and displaying gifts in our shop. The semi-truck pulled up and we all unloaded poinsettias for hours. Pots had to be washed, bows and foil needed to be applied, and everything needed to be painstakingly placed according to plan.

 


[Jeff Woolsey orders some flowers from Flowers & Things owner Virginia Hughes and helper Natalie Moehring.]

 

Perhaps it is the nostalgia that comes with the passing of time, but I have really forgotten how hard those times were. Instead I can vividly remember that magic moment when all the shelves were full, poinsettias colorfully adorned every open spot, the spotlights gleamed off shimmering surfaces, the arrangements and wreaths completed just as we had imagined them, the cooler filled and ready, and the giftware was perfectly displayed. I can remember looking over what we had created with great pride and satisfaction, and with tears in our eyes, we knew that at long last all was ready. It was Tuesday of Thanksgiving week.

 


[Larry Steffens prepares a floral display at Eckert's Fine Furnishings while his son Jason looks on.]

While we tried hard to keep the bottom line in mind each year as we made our holiday selections, and as we stood at the bench bringing together Christmas creations, money was never our goal or our focus (maybe that’s why we had so little of it). Every arrangement, every gift item, every decoration and plant that we purchased was done so with our customers and their individual tastes in mind. We wanted to select and create things that would make their faces light up, that would make them gasp or sigh with satisfaction. We so wanted to please and satisfy their desires. Their happiness and satisfaction was our focus and our goal.

Each Christmas season as our customers came to see us, it seemed like a party or a reunion of friends and family. We shared our creations with them and they shared their lives with us. I can’t remember a richer time as I look back on my life.

 

As I look around at the special shops and stores we have here in Lincoln this Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I am reminded of the extraordinary effort that is necessary for each of our retailers to prepare for the holiday season. They have spent long hours preparing, planning and they have labored hard and long. They have taken great risks with money, material and time. They have hired extra staff, displayed special decorations, and taken extra care to make sure that everything is right and ready. Realize this Tuesday before Thanksgiving that they have done it all with you and me, their friends and customers, in their minds and in their hearts. Our happiness and satisfaction is their hope and their goal.

[jim youngquist]

 

 

Robert Prunty
Local cruise and travel consultant

A member of the
American Society of Travel Agents

509 Woodlawn Road Lincoln
217-732-3486

Click here to e-mail Robert Prunty

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