December 25, 2003


The Christmas Planner

By Kymberli W. Brady
Staff Writer

The day has finally come. The presents have been opened. The feast has given way to thoughts of leftover turkey sandwiches and casseroles. Mom and Dad are sleeping in for the first time in months, while the children quietly play with new Playstation games, Barbie dolls and Hokey Pokey Elmos, snacking on an early breakfast of chocolate truffles and candy canes spilling from nearby stockings.

Christmas is steeped in tradition –from fresh evergreen trees and pine branches to the fruit and ornaments that adorn them. This year, over 33 million families in America filled their holiday with the beauty, glow and fragrance that makes this one of the most celebrated events of the year.

Soon it will be time to take down the lights, untie every bow, gingerly wrap each ornament and tuck them safely away with their own memories attached, then pack everything up until next year.

Many of the traditions we celebrate today come straight from the pages of Charles Dickens, who taught the spirit of Christmas in A Christmas Carol, which vividly tells of holly, feasts, family, parties, and presents. Equally important were the illustrations that portrayed the grand festivities, filled with sugared fruits, mistletoe, ribbon candy and Christmas turkeys.

Later, Clement Moore would bring us reindeer, stockings and St. Nick in the story of an actual man from Turkey who tossed a bag of gold coins down a destitute man’s chimney to spare him from sending his daughters into prostitution. The coins landed in the stockings that had been hung by the fire to dry. The man would later become one of the most popular saints in Europe, renamed Sinter Claus due to his unorthodox method of delivery.

Although literature and folklore were pivotal in creating the love for Christmas and many of its traditions, increasing pressures on already busy lifestyles can sometimes remove the “spirit” in which the task was originally intended. But in the midst of shuffling schedules to find time to buy the tree, get the decorations out of storage, hang the lights, decorate and still find time to shop, one Almaden businessman takes a special pride in turning those tedious traditions into awe inspiring works of holiday splendor. Martha Stewart has nothing on this guy.

“All of our lives are so busy,” says Kren Rasmussen, owner of Bloomsters in Almaden. “I’ve always had a strong sense of the way the media portrays the holidays. It becomes more and more complicated. We aspire to have our home look like House Beautiful or Architectural Digest, adding a lot of pressure to do-it-yourself. It can become overwhelming and sometimes frustrating because you feel like you haven’t achieved –you haven’t reached those goals.”

For many, the holiday season seems to start earlier every year, where silver bells and snowmen jockey for retail space with black cats and pumpkins. For Rasmussen, it is all part of the job he is unquestionably devoted to, one filled with a level of service that happens only through careful, personalized planning and begins as early as September each year.

Rasmussen offers much more in the way of the flowers that earned him top San Jose florist honors for several years running. His magic is available a-la-carte or a total package, from wreaths and centerpieces to lighting and complete home transformations from the inside out. He’ll even pack it all away for you when it’s over.

Although many families delight in the preparation process, there are those who either can no longer do it by themselves or simply don’t have the time. “We have the materials available as well as the time and the skill,” Rasmussen says. “We’re happy to help. It’s a great challenge. –Sorting through it, getting it all out, putting it all away.”

According to designer John Southorn, planning starts as early as August. Whether a client simply wants a wreath or the tree lit, or they expect to arrive home to find the entire house done, Bloomsters has built a reputation based on knowing their client’s tastes and needs as well and knowing what is expected.

“We try to give it a unified look and bring it all together,” Southorn says. “There are a lot of people here that go into decorating just one home. That just makes us better –to understand what we have to do and what we have to accomplish.”

Some of Bloomster’s clients find themselves returning from Thanksgiving weekend on the slopes to a home completely decorated for the holidays –lights are hung, the front door is embellished, the mantle is set and the tree is decorated. All they need to do is simply step into the holiday season without any of the pressures that accompany it. It’s costly, but to them it’s worth every cent.

Bloomster’s signature looks incorporate a myriad of Eucalyptus berries, pepper berry clusters, million star jip, dia dora pods, china berries, hydrangeas, fabric work and red dogwood branches as added elements that further create a dramatic visual statement with depth and textural contrast. But this unique style doesn’t necessarily come cheap, although options are available to suite every budget. “It could be as much as a $15,000 or $20,000 job,” admits Rasmussen. “We have had very large homes used for corporate events. Sometimes for that re-anchoring back to the holidays, the events end up being at a home rather than a hotel.

“We often work best when a client calls and wants the front porch done but has a budget set,” Southorn admits. “Because we do it all year, we come up with something that works for them. The majority of the work is done here in the store so we have it ready to go and so there’s less man-hours placed on that. We don’t necessarily have go to their homes to make it all come together and be cohesive.”

For the past five years, Christine Perry has enlisted the aid of Bloomsters to transform her home into a Christmas wonderland. The exterior lighting is installed each October –an estimated six to eight hour process. After Thanksgiving, the same amount of time is spent setting the lights on their 14-foot tree. “The tree lights take so long,” she says. “They wrap them around each individual branch so you don’t see the cords and that’s what makes it look like it does. It illuminates from the inside out.”

“We have a special technique in lighting a tree,” admits Rasmussen. “When a tree is lit well, it has depth and sparkle. Each light is really portraying that glow that you are trying to achieve.”

Topiaries, wreaths and centerpieces are then added to integrate the theme throughout the Perry home “Every year, we seem to add a little bit more,” she admits. “They put it all together and then they come and pack everything up for me. Kren is so amazing,” she adds. “He has the eye for something fabulous. I like the formality of what he does. Everything always looks big and luscious, especially his topiaries. It’s worth every penny.”

Almaden’s Linda and Joe Bronson also rely on Bloomsters for their holiday entertaining needs, but Linda admits, “With Kren, it’s not just about the holiday, it’s year-round.”

“It’s the only way I can do it with this house,” she admits. “I’ve changed in that I loved to decorate when the children were small and the house was small. Now it’s time to enjoy the holidays, so I let him come in and I give him free reign. He works magic with balls and garland.”

Bronson started using Bloomsters for dinner parties in 1995. After her son left for college, she and her daughter Meredith could no longer light or decorate the massive tree by themselves and called Rasmussen. “For the first two years, we would have Kren buy the tree and put the lights on it,” she admits. “Then I asked them if they would put the ornaments on and he’s been doing it ever since.”

Over the years, the Bronson’s have amassed an assortment of wreaths, garlands, bobbles and bows, and each year, Rasmussen arrives to work his magic and then make it disappear again. “He knows right were everything is,” Bronson kids. “He brings the tree. He takes the bins down from the garage, he puts them on the tree, then he comes back and takes them off the tree, puts them back in the bins, puts the bins back on the shelf in the garage and sends me a nice big bill.”

Rasmussen’s creations are not limited to containers and pots. Landscaping has long been in the family and he inherited his father’s green thumb. More importantly, he feels very strongly that the outside yard and patio areas should be landscaped in such a way as to become extensions of the home, offering assistance with a host of other related services, including low voltage lighting – an often under looked and inexpensive option to landscaping and something most people need in order to enjoy their gardens when they return home at night. “Lighting is important,” he says. “Now we have such great resources to do beautiful low voltage lighting in the back yard. When done well, it really enhances the quality of the home.”

With several revenue bases at Bloomsters, including home interiors, landscaping, weddings, corporate events and permanent botanicals, the economic downturn hasn’t really hurt their business, even with a 50% reduction in corporate floral orders. “We were fortunate to have other areas to develop our revenue base and weather the storm,” Rasmussen says. “It will make us all the more stronger when it comes back.”