LUBBOCK, Texas — Employees at Holland Gardens, a local plant nursery in Lubbock, are already prepping for one of their busiest times of year.

“It takes all year to get it all in great shape for Christmas,” said Ann Holland, who owns the plant nursery with her husband.  

The Holland’s and their team have been prepping for the holiday season much earlier than most.

“We start in January, working our way through, and we love what we do; It’s obvious,” said Holland.  

According to Holland, if it seems like people are buying more Christmas décor earlier each year, it’s because they are starting to make those purchases sooner and sooner.   

“They are coming in earlier than they used to because they don’t want something to run out before they can get it and they want to have the newest things out,” she said. “So as we get new things in, brand new things they’ve never seen before, we’re the place to see.”  

Although they have things like trees, lights and ornaments year-round, Holland said it’s pretty easy for the store to know when to start getting even more holiday merchandise out.  

“The people decide that for us [when] they start coming in,” said Holland. “We keep Christmas out year around. We simply make it different and add some other things to it at that time.” 

Even though it seems a little soon to be thinking about the holidays, Holland said for some folks it’s late. 

“The earliest would be when people are trying to see at the end of the previous year,” she said. “If there was something left that we might before we put it away and store it until the next season, they might want to go ahead and grab some of that then. And that does happen really often.” 

However, at the end of all of the preparation and work, Holland said in her experience, the Christmas spirit seems to be contagious.  

“We just simply love what we do, and the people seem to love it too, because they come in and they’ll say, ‘Oh, the ribbon, the new ribbon is here!’”