LADDER NOT INCLUDED
Happy holidays, merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, feliz Navidad, Noël, joy, peace and on and on and on. Now is the season for all of those wonderful sentiments to be plastered across the landscape or the front of the house or even the garage door.
You can’t escape them and eventually, as you trudge through the rain or snow and fight the traffic at the mall, you realize you have to spend the time to put up the decorations.
There have been books dedicated to just this chore, from “Holiday Decorating for Dummies” to the “Holiday Hero: A Man’s Manual for Holiday Lighting.” All of these are very informative, but they still require that you get out there, climb the ladder and run the extension cords.
You can procrastinate or you can be out there in the middle of the night, it doesn’t matter it still has to be done.
Climbing up to the roof line and attaching the decorations securely while making sure it all looks the way you want it to is a very daunting prospect. There are so many things to consider when installing lights and electrical decorations: watts, amp conversion, making sure you haven’t overloaded the electrical circuits in your house.
In the race to get everything done and to try to make it all perfect, you sometimes just don’t have the time or energy to put up the elaborate decorations you would like to have. So, you do what Americans have done with many of the mundane tasks: You hire someone else to do the decorating for you.
“It is one less thing to worry about. What with the wrapping, the cooking, the cleaning and organizing I don’t have to nag my husband to get up on the ladder,” said Jean Buffalo of Las Vegas about her decision to hire Holiday Illuminations. “I just called them to decorate the house for Halloween and they come out for Christmas and change all of the bulbs and add more stuff.”
Many companies are out there to help get this chore accomplished. Holiday Illuminations, The Christmas Light Pros and several other niche businesses have sprung up around the valley to help people save those precious hours it would take to do the decorating themselves.
“Nobody wants to spend the holidays in the hospital; we hire people who are experienced with climbing ladders and handling electricity every day,” said Gabor Viczko of Holiday Illuminations.
“During the winter and cooler weather, a lot of construction and landscape workers are in need of a temporary job or short-duration employment. That’s where the decorating companies come into play by hiring these craftsmen who are having a difficult time performing their usual jobs and allowing them to make the money they need to help provide their families with better holidays,” he added.
Holiday Illuminations has been serving valley residents since 1993 and has a long list of satisfied customers who tout their praises when it comes to saving time and energy.
“They provided us with great service and saved us time that would normally get soaked up hanging lights ourselves,” said Lisa Wagner, who hired the company to decorate her home.
Dave Steckbeck of The Christmas Light Pros echoed Viczko’s sentiments about employing qualified tradesmen to install lights and decorations.
“Our specialty is getting up to the high parts of the eaves. We use the construction workers and electricians who are normally building homes and doing roofing; but with the slowdown in the housing market, we can get quality people and provide a quality service.”
The Christmas Light Pros is a nationally franchised company that provides training and direction for entrepreneurs. It offers decorating packages for homes of any size and will custom design a package to fit your needs.
“We have lease packages available for most anyone and you don’t even have to store them,” explained Steckbeck.
The lights and decorations are stored at the company’s expense and offered to the same client the following season. The customer may use the same decorations year after year and simply add to the package as his or her needs change.
“An average-sized home of 2,000 to 2,500 square feet will need a package costing $450 to $500 dollars, which includes take down and storage until the next season,” Steckbeck said.
The holidays are just around the corner. You should have started decorating in October. Say, where’s that number?
