As the summer sun beams down, many are enjoying the warm weather and outdoor activities. However, at Royer’s Flowers and Gifts, we’re already immersing ourselves in the holiday spirit, designing and photographing our Christmas arrangements. This early preparation allows us to capture the essence of the season and ensure that every arrangement we offer during the holidays is crafted with the utmost care and creativity.
Our talented team of designers is hard at work, transforming our workshop into a winter wonderland. While it might seem unusual to think about Christmas amidst the summer heat, this is a crucial time for us to conceptualize and bring to life the festive designs that will grace homes and celebrations in December.
In our workshop, you’ll find an array of holiday-themed materials—red carnations, lush evergreens, and ribbons in every shade of Christmas cheer. The process of creating our Christmas arrangements is a blend of creativity and tradition, with each piece carefully crafted to evoke the warmth and joy of the holiday season. From classic arrangements featuring traditional colors and elements to more modern designs with unique twists, our collection aims to cater to diverse tastes and preferences.
Once the designs are complete, the next step is capturing their beauty through photography. This is where the magic truly comes alive. Our photographer works meticulously to ensure that each arrangement is presented in the best possible light, highlighting the intricate details and vibrant colors. The photos we take in July are used throughout the holiday season, helping our customers envision how these beautiful pieces can enhance their own celebrations.
As part of our July design session, we are also creating arrangements for fall and Thanksgiving!
Designing and photographing our Christmas arrangements in July allows us to experiment with new ideas, refine our designs, and ensure that every detail is perfect. It also gives us ample time to plan and prepare for the busy holiday season, ensuring that we can meet the demands of our customers with beautifully crafted arrangements.
If you’ve watched the classic TV version of “Frosty the Snowman,” your heart probably sank when he stepped out of the cold and snow into a warm greenhouse.
He melted in the heat, only to come back to life when Santa opened the greenhouse door and let a cold draft of air in.
What you may not have noticed was that the greenhouse was filled with red poinsettias. For them, a cold draft is a dangerous thing.
“Poinsettias don’t like the cold, so you want to keep them away from drafty doors,” said Geoff Royer, Royer’s vice president of central operations.
You must treat them as such if you want to get the most out of your poinsettia this holiday season.
National Poinsettia Day
Of course, December is synonymous with Christmas, but Dec. 12 is National Poinsettia Day. It commemorates the 1851 death of Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico and the man after whom poinsettias are named.
Poinsett introduced the plant to the United States in 1825, sending samples to friends in his native Charleston, S.C. Poinsettias made their public debut at a Philadelphia flower show in 1829.
For their first hundred years in America, poinsettias were mostly sold as cut flowers. That was until Paul Ecke, a southern California agriculturalist, created varieties that could be shipped in pots.
Poinsettias registered sales of $213.7 million last year, according to Axios, up 40 percent from 2020.
Care tips
But for all the popularity of poinsettias, how to care for them remains much less well known and bear repeating. In fact, we go over poinsettia care tips with our own staff in the lead-up to every holiday season.
Geoff Royer, vice president of central operations, Royer’s Flowers & Gifts.
Unless you want to end up on someone’s naughty list, here’s what else you need to know to ensure your Christmas Flower lasts well into the new year.
Average room temperature is fine. Poinsettias can’t tolerate cold (including icy water) and can suffer from droopy leaves (a condition known as epinasty) if exposed to cold temperatures.
Epinasty also can result from a build-up of ethylene gas. Big-box retailers are notorious for leaving poinsettias in plastic sleeves, which trap ethylene and essentially ruin the plant.
Bright, ample light is best for the plant, mimicking conditions in Mexico.
Keep the plant moist but not sitting in water. Like people, poinsettias don’t like wet feet. The frequency and amount of water will vary depending upon the amount of sunlight, humidity and pot size to which the plant is exposed.
Poinsettias are sensitive plants, so you want to avoid banging them into things as they can bruise easily.
We wish you and your family a Happy Poinsettia Day and a Merry Christmas!
If you’ve ever seen the movie “A Christmas Story,” (if not, TBS plays it 12 times in a row starting on Christmas Eve) you might recall the scene when the Parkers venture to a tree lot.
“This isn’t one of those trees that all the needles falls off, is it?” asks Mrs. Parker.
The salesman responds: “No, that’s them balsams.”
Balsam fir is one of the most fragrant of Christmas tree species, but as the line from the movie suggests, it has a warranted reputation for shedding needles.
In recent years, however, after noticing a decline in the quality of the balsam wreaths, we switched to noble fir wreaths. They vary in size and come undecorated or adorned with the likes of pine cones, red berries and juniper. Bows and balls can be added, too.
Royer’s also offers silk balsam wreaths that are priced comparable to the old fresh balsam wreaths.
Cheryl Brill, Royer’s chief operating officer, said that the balsam wreaths were not constructed as well as they had been, perhaps because of a shortage of labor that required earlier and earlier production schedules.
“And there’s been an awful lot of drought,” she said. “Evergreens don’t respond well to that. When you cut them extra early to produce wreaths and then you’ve been having a drought situation, you end up with naked wreaths by the end of the season.”
‘Noble in stature’
If you aren’t familiar with noble fir, consider that it has been referred to as “the Cadillac of Christmas trees” and “the king of holiday greens.”
Here’s how The Real Christmas Tree Board, a national promotion and research organization funded by North American Christmas tree growers, describes the noble fir:
“Noble in name and stature, this stately tree features short, blue-green needles. The Noble fir has some of the best needle retention among Christmas tree species, with stiff branches and an attractive form to handle heavy ornaments. You’ll also find it used as greenery for wreaths and garland.”
To understand why noble fir is superior to balsam fir in needle retention, it helps to understand where the trees grow.
Balsam fir is grown in Canada, the northeastern states, the upper Great Lakes and Pennsylvania, according to The Real Christmas Tree Board; most noble fir is grown in the Pacific Northwest, at a significantly higher altitude than balsam. Continental Floral Greens, the maker of our noble wreaths, harvests the trees on the slopes of Mount St. Helens.
Nobles must be sturdy enough to withstand high winds. They also face 60 inches of rain annually and plenty of frost, which are key factors in their superior moisture and needle retention.
The noble wreaths are more expensive than the balsam wreaths, which reflects the longer growing time for noble and the shipping distance from Washington State.
While switching from traditional balsam wasn’t an easy decision, Brill noted that it was motivated by a desire to offer a better-constructed, longer-lasting option to customers.
“The main thing is their longevity,” she said of the noble. “And they are a very pretty wreath. The fir is fluffier because the needles are kind of rounded. It’s not a flat branch like a balsam is. So it has more dimension to it. They’ve always been my favorite.”
Noah Gingrich of Royer’s wholesale department installing string lights on one of two giant sycamore trees in front of Royer’s Lebanon store.
It takes two people to carry sections of the bell arch.
Noah Gingrich with one of the bell arch sections.
The bell arch being installed on the front of Royer’s Lebanon store.
From left, Barry Spengler, chief administrative officer, and Noah Gingrich, from the wholesale department, secure a trumpeting soldier statue under the bell arch.
Lebanon driver Brenda Yordy removes last year’s lights from garland.
Hershey assistant manager Alexi Strine, left, tries out the newly installed selfie station with the help of sales associate Paige Blankenhorn.
Noah Gingrich went trick-or-treating with his young cousins on Halloween night.
By the next morning, temperatures having devilishly dipped into the 30s, he was placing a sleigh and two reindeer in front of Royer’s flagship store in Lebanon. It was the start of an eight-day process of decorating the company’s 16 stores in seven counties for the holiday season.
An employee in Royer’s Flowers wholesale department, Noah has been the lead holiday decorator for the past three years, readying store exteriors with toy soldier statues, wreaths and garlands, string lights on bushes and trees.
Two of those trees are mighty sycamores that flank the Lebanon store’s driveway. On the left side, staple gun in hand and ladder at the ready, Noah wound nine courses of lights around the trunk.
“And there’s one tree,” he pronounced as the final staple clicked into place.
Standing out
Decking the halls is a decades-long tradition for family-owned Royer’s, now in the hands of its third and fourth generations. One of the latter is Geoff Royer, vice president of central operations, who oversaw the work in Lebanon and that afternoon at the Hershey store.
“It definitely dresses the stores up for the holidays,” Geoff said. “And nobody really does this any more to the scale that we do it, so it does make us stand out.”
It’s a significant undertaking, involving other members of the wholesale department and employees at every store.
Before Noah arrived, the stores were tasked with stripping old sets of string lights from garland, attaching new ones and generally fluffing greenery that has been in storage for the previous 11 months.
Brenda Yordy, a Lebanon driver, working at an outside table, used a pair of wire cutters to extract the lights.
“Easier than untangling them, right?” she said. Later, she was joined in the task by store manager Melissa Fahr.
It took two people to carry each of four sections of a metal bell arch from storage to the front of the Lebanon store, on South 12th Street.
“It’s a beast,” said chief operating officer Cheryl Brill.
In previous years, the arch spanned the doorway, attached to decorative wooden beams. This year, with the beams newly clad in metal, no one wanted to risk scratching them.
So, the team instead affixed the arch, with its bells of red, green and white, above the Royer’s sign to the left of the beams, securing it with hooks and wire to the red-brick building. They placed a trumpeting soldier statue beneath the arch.
Selfies in Hershey
By afternoon, Noah and Geoff were working their Christmas magic 12 miles west at the Hershey store, which enjoys a prominent corner spot on West Chocolate Avenue, downtown’s main thoroughfare.
Several stores have enough storage space to hang on to their large exterior decorations year-round. For those that don’t, such as Hershey, their larger pieces are kept at Royer’s headquarters in Lebanon and delivered to them by Noah in a box truck.
Hershey store manager Andrea Campbell and assistant manager Alexi Strine were excited about turning their store’s sleigh into a selfie station. They moved the sleigh closer to the front door than in past years to make it more accessible to customers.
To be sure, the holiday season requires weeks of hard work, store decorating being just the start. In the floral industry, Christmas sales are on a par with Valentine’s Day but spread out over a period that’s three times longer.
Poinsettias require prudent watering, low centerpieces with shallow water wells can be sloshy, and fresh evergreen branches can be sticky. And glitter is seemingly everywhere.
“But we’re making everyone really happy,” Andrea said. “We make so many people so happy.”
One customer has followed Andrea from her first stint in Hershey, to the Harrisburg East store, back to Hershey. Every Christmas, the woman brings in silver pedestal bowls to be filled with greens, berries and roses that she gifts to family members.
“There’s a lot of sentimental things that are happening,” Andrea said. “Then you really feel like you are part of this super-special moment for this family. And I think that’s cool.”
At the top of this year’s Christmas list, let’s take some of the hectic out of holiday decorating.
’Tis the season to be jolly, but it also can be a time of great stress. While Hallmark movies and Pinterest boards can be great sources of inspiration, don’t underestimate your own style and creativity when it comes to design and budget.
You can do it yourself and do it your way.
That’s the message from Royer’s designers Kim Orris and Steven Shughart, colleagues at our Carlisle store, who shared their secrets for less restive, more festive holiday home decorating.
Span the holidays
Santa rides in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. You might put your Christmas tree up before taking the first bite of Thanksgiving turkey. The two holidays flow into one another like gravy across a scoop of mashed potatoes.
In that spirit, you can use a pine wreath as a Thanksgiving centerpiece before hanging it on your front door during Christmas. Wreaths also can be hung inside on a door or wall.
Borrow from nature
To enhance a centerpiece, consider taking a walk. It’s not only good for mind and body, but you can find branches, leaves, pine cones, acorns to bring the outside inside.
“You can go on a walk and clip a branch and put it in a vase,” Steven said. “You see that in almost any magazine anymore.”
“And along with our gift items, it looks gorgeous,” Kim said.
Embrace what’s free
What’s more, what you find outside costs nothing.
“Sometimes the free stuff is what really makes a house feel lived in, like it’s collected,” Steven said.
You also can save money by using items you already have, such as filling a vase or bowl with Christmas balls.
Improvise
“You don’t have to have the oval centerpiece with the two candles,” Steven said.
“Or you can have that and add to it with the branches or the balls or the greenery just spread around,” Kim said. Or run a small set of battery-powered lights down the table.
If you’re having a holiday party, consider buying a handful of flowers and spreading the heads on the table.
“It doesn’t have to be designed,” Kim said.
Ultimately, there is no single way to deck the halls. You should find comfort and joy in doing what pleases your eye.
Royer’s Flowers & Gifts will continue an annual tradition by collecting holiday cards and coloring pages for service members and veterans from Oct. 16 through Nov. 14.
Royer’s has partnered with the American Red Cross “Holidays for Heroes” program for more than a decade.
The Red Cross offers these guidelines for preparing cards:
Use generic salutations: “Dear Service Member” or “Dear Veteran”
Be thoughtful with messages, expressing reasons why you are thankful for the service members/veterans; if you have a personal connection, such as a family member who served, consider adding that
Try not to be overtly religious, but messages such as “Merry Christmas” or “God Bless You” are acceptable
Do not include inserts such as glitter, photos, business cards
Do not include personal information such as telephone number, address or email
Sign your name
The American Red Cross prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.
You can seal in the wreath’s moisture with hairspray.
For the holidays, the song says, you can’t beat home sweet home.
But while the sunshine of a friendly gaze can warm your heart, home also is where you can find practical solutions to Christmas complications.
Take hairspray, for instance.
You can spray it on nail polish to make it dry faster as you get ready for the office party, or on wrapped presents to make them glossy and stand out.
Our favorite holiday hack, however, is the power and punch hairspray can give to your Christmas wreath.
A wreath’s round shape and evergreen composition are why it is a symbol of eternal life. Evergreen trees have long been revered for their ability to survive winter.
Of course, even a fresh wreath will become dry over time. A cut Christmas tree will lose needles, but you can slow the process by giving it daily drinks of water.
That’s not possible with a wreath. Instead, you can seal in the wreath’s moisture with hairspray. It acts like glue and holds the needles on.
For best results and to avoid messes, spray the wreath outdoors before you hang it on a door, window or wall. Hang it on the outside of a door (it can get cooked if placed behind glass) and out of direct sunlight.
If you want to be happy in a million ways, the song says, for the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home.
Royer’s stores collected cards and coloring pages throughout November.
This year marked Royer’s 10th year with Holidays for Heroes.
Barry Spengler, Royer’s chief administrative officer, and Lisa Landis, communications and marketing director, American Red Cross.
Among the 450 coloring pages submitted were many downloaded from Royer’s Flowers & Gifts’ website and some created from scratch.
“Thank you for your service,” read one handwritten page adorned with hearts and flowers.
And then there were the printed holiday cards, numbering more than 3,600.
On Tuesday, Royer’s presented the cards and coloring pages to the American Red Cross for distribution to area service members and veterans.
Royer’s, which has participated in the Red Cross “Holidays for Heroes” program for a decade, collected the cards from the public in each of its stores throughout November.
We typically think of the North Pole when it comes to Christmas, but the most popular holiday plant originates with our neighbor to the south.
Poinsettias are native to Mexico and were introduced to the United States in 1825 by Joel Roberts Poinsett, who was the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
In fact, Poinsett’s death in 1851 is commemorated every Dec. 12 as National Poinsettia Day.
Did You Know?
The colored parts of poinsettias aren’t flowers but bracts (leaves).
Poinsettias are not poisonous, to humans or pets: An Ohio State study found that a 50-pound child who ate 500 bracts (leaves) might have a slight tummy ache.
Poinsettias are commercially grown in all 50 states. For instance, the 20,000 poinsettias that Royer’s receives each year are from Lancaster County.
Ninety percent of all poinsettias are exported from the United States.
Poinsettia Care
Keeping your poinsettia looking great this Christmas takes two easy steps, but did you know with a few more steps you can have a wonderful poinsettia next Christmas as well?
This Christmas
When the surface of the soil is dry to the touch, water the plant.
Keep the poinsettia in a room with temperatures between 60 and 72 degrees. Keep the plant out of hot and cold drafts, such as those from a heating vent or open door.
Next Christmas
When leaves begin to drop, let dry slightly between watering.
In late spring (early May) cut back plant to 6 inches, shake free of soil and repot in new potting soil, then resume regular watering. Fertilize with a 30-10-10 fertilizer twice monthly. Stop fertilizing November 1st until December 30th.
Place outdoors in a warm sunny location when the temperatures are consistently over 60 degrees.
Pinch the tips of new shoots when they reach 6 to 8 inches long until late July. Continue to fertilize every two weeks.
Bring indoors before cold nights (early September) and place indoors in full sun. Three to six hours of sunlight is needed.
In order for poinsettias to bloom, they must have 14 hours of uninterrupted darkness each day for 40 days (late September through October). Place in a dark place such as a closet or cover with a bag from early evening and remove the next morning so that the plant is in total darkness.
When #6 is followed, your poinsettia will bloom at Christmas, but remember, it only takes 10 minutes of light per day during the time it was dark and your plant won’t bloom until January or February.
Continuing an annual tradition, Royer’s Flowers & Gifts on Dec. 7, 2021, presented several thousand holiday cards and coloring pages to the American Red Cross for distribution to area veterans.
Royer’s, which has participated in the Red Cross “Holidays for Heroes” program for nearly a decade, collected the cards from the public in each of its stores throughout November.
WGAL News 8 and abc27 were on hand at Royer’s Harrisburg East store as Barry Spengler, Royer’s chief administrative officer, transferred boxes of cards and coloring pages to Jonathan Glenn, regional program director, American Red Cross.
