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Whatever the conventions about separating religion and public life, even the most secular of businesses decorate for Christmas. The traditional non-religious décor includes wreaths, garlands, alights, and of course, Christmas trees. Almost every business has a Christmas tree displayed somewhere during the month of December.
There are two options when it comes to corporate Christmas trees; you can either buy live trees or artificial ones. Live Christmas trees are typically grown on Christmas tress farms. They may be sold by private citizens at temporary lots, but corporations and other companies usually have a standing order with the Christmas tree farm. The farm delivers the requested number of trees either through its own delivery mechanism, or it sends the Christmas trees through another shipper such as the United States Post Office or UPS. Live trees look and smell beautiful, but caution should be taken with them. Since the pine needles dry out, the trees could become a fire hazard. And of course, live trees are not really alive any longer, and will only retain their freshness for a short time. They must then be thrown out after Christmas.
Artificial corporate Christmas trees can be acquired the same way, through relationships with corporate Christmas tree suppliers who will deliver the trees to your building or location. The benefits of artificial trees are that they do not have to be purchased anew every winter, thereby saving the company money. Although they are missing the fullness and aroma of a live tree, artificial trees can look quite pleasing, especially once they are fully decorated and placed around the building. And of course, they are just kept in storage for the next year.
Once you have decided whether your corporate Christmas trees will be live or artificial, you then have to see to the matter of decorating them. In this case, also, you have two choices; you can have someone within the company take care of it, or you can hire someone from outside the company to do it. You will have to consider several factors in making this choice.
• Can you afford to lose the work hours it would take to spare an employee from his or her regular duties to decorate your Christmas trees? On the other hand, can you afford to hire a decorator or other specialist for a task that a creative employee could probably accomplish?
• What kind of space are you working with? A small business owner is likely to have a small tree that she decorates herself, but a large corporation will have many large corporate Christmas trees, and decorating them could take a long time. A professional will have the resources to get that task done quickly and efficiently without interrupting the work flow of your company's day.
Christmas is the only time of the year when all companies are expected to decorate, and your corporate Christmas trees are a central part of that. After you've made some key decisions about your decorations, it should be easy for you and your company to get into the Christmas spirit.