Bring In a Professional
To Decorate Your Tree

December 15, 2004 -- Christmas is a time of fairy tales and legends -- including the one about the happy family decorating the perfect tree.

In reality, these annual rites often end less blissfully. There is friction over which tree to buy, where to put the tinsel, and who gets saddled with stringing the lights.

Here's one potential solution. More florists and designers are now offering tree-decorating services. The customer can either supply the trimmings, or let the designer bring in everything -- even the tree.

In Rochester, N.Y., florist Charles Arena says demand is now such that he's forced to turn people away. He attributes the boom to people's increasingly busy lives and the pressure to create "a Norman Rockwell scene that you can never live up to."

Operating with a budget of $250 a tree, we tried decorators from Dallas to San Francisco, and even ordered a pre-lit and predecorated tree by mail. The aim was to see whether the professionals could whip up a little stress-free holiday magic for us.

With San Francisco designer Robert Bozzini, we provided the tree and the lights, and asked him to handle the creative vision. For that, he estimated the project would take five hours at $45 per hour. To help mask our tree's uneven appearance, Mr. Bozzini offered to wire in some new branches to fill in the holes. Turned out we didn't need that. Instead, he cut some persimmon-colored artists' mesh and floated it between the branches to draw the eye away from the trees flaws. He also ingeniously opted to display our 5-foot-tall tree on the coffee table to keep it in scale with the rest of the room. The final touch, though, was our idea: a $15 remote control for the tree lights.

Finding a decorator for $250 proved nearly impossible in some cities. Our New York tester found a gun-for-hire tree decorator on Craigslist -- but she backed out after spraining her back decorating someone else's tree. He also posted fliers around campus at a local art school, the Pratt Institute: "Decorate an X-Mas Tree for Cash." But still no takers.

It's enough to make even a purist think about going with a fake tree. On a pre-Thanksgiving flight we were flipping through the Skymall catalog when we spotted pre-decorated artificial trees for $159.95. It arrived with 30 shatterproof ornaments, 48 feet of burgundy ribbon, 30 bows, 24 candy canes and 400 lights -- on a 6-foot tree. We unfolded it like an accordion, snapped together the metal trunk and were ready for Santa in less than 10 minutes. It was little too commercial for our living room, however, so we put it outside.

Teddy Solis, one of the designers we tried in Dallas, discouraged our tester from getting ribbon: It can be tacky, he explained, when you start piling on bows. When he arrived at our house, he started with the lights -- about 1,000 miniature bulbs in all. The laid-back decorator offered a helpful tip: If you squint and look at the tree as the lights are being placed, you can quickly see spots you've missed.

The only glitch was with the white sparkly balls that we bought at the craft store Garden Ridge for $1.99 apiece. One came unattached from its hanging fixture before making it onto the tree.

The other Dallas designer, Anne McCaleb, steered us toward a burgundy-and-gold color scheme (instead of red, white and silver). She also suggested poinsettia clip-ons to accompany the burgundy ribbons and created a floral arrangement topper using some of the poinsettias instead of the traditional angel or Santa toppers, which she says are becoming passé. In 2 hours and 45 minutes we had a tree that friends say looks fit for a department-store window.

-- Melanie Trottman and Kortney Stringer contributed to this article.

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