Royer’s Flowers & Gifts begins to decorate its stores for the holidays right after Halloween.
From installing heavy bell arches and larger-than-life toy soldiers, string lights and Santa’s sleigh, the process consumes more than a week across 16 stores in seven counties. But that’s just what the public sees.
The truth is that for Royer’s, one of the largest florists in the United States, Christmastime is all the time, even if much of the work takes place behind the scenes.
“We actually start prepping for Christmas in January,” said Geoff Royer, vice president of production and product development. “So once we go through the Christmas season, we have a review of what worked, what didn’t work. It’s a year-round thing for us.”
January will take Royer’s buyers to a major trade show in Atlanta, for instance, where they order holiday giftware that will arrive in stores some 10 months later.
Orchestrating everything requires varying amounts of attention at points throughout the year. It reaches a crescendo in December when dozens of Royer’s employees, creating their version of Santa’s workshop, gather in teams in the company’s central design department in Lebanon.
Combined, they handcraft 15,000 holiday arrangements (centerpieces most of all) and decorate 3,000 poinsettias and dish gardens for distribution to the 16 stores.
Royer’s reaches far and near to source its products.
Flowers are grown in South America. Most of the greens come from the West Coast. Poinsettias, although native to Mexico, hail from greenhouses in Ephrata, Lancaster County, and near Philadelphia.
“But we also get white pine straight from out of the Poconos,” Geoff said. “We have a guy who goes out and cuts bundles for us. And he’s right here in Pennsylvania.”
Just as Royer’s works on the holiday season the whole year long, some customers might like it if holiday arrangements were available all 365 days.
“People will send them for get-wells, they’ll send them for birthdays,” Geoff noted. “So just because it’s a Christmas arrangement doesn’t mean it’s not appropriate for all occasions.”