Christmas can be a whole lot, between getting presents for everyone, putting up the tree and timing dinner to military precision. But imagine doing it on a giant scale? That’s what a team of crack Christmas designers do in documentary Deck the Halls: The Luxury Christmas Decorators.
Liverpool-based outfit The Christmas Decorators are a remarkable crew. They transform public and private spaces across the UK with great cheer for the festive period, and this insight into their elven magic is an absolute eye-opener.
A gargantuan task in the best of years, it’s an even more significant challenge during a pandemic. Boats, trucks and planes packed full of tinsel, baubles and tree-topping stars are backed up in a supply chain crisis that makes a flying sleigh towed by reindeer look all the more appealing.
Operations director Ged has to contend with 150 boxes, or 125 tonnes, of decorations that are delayed en route from across the UK and internationally, threatening to cancel Christmas. This is what makes this mesmerising series all the more relatable. Because while our Yuletide extravaganzas unfurl on a much smaller scale, who hasn’t known the last-minute chaos-wrangling it takes to get things just right?
Deck the Halls follows the gang as they metamorphose instantly recognisable spaces like the Natural History Museum’s forecourt, presenting London-based decorator Shobna with her biggest (literally) challenge yet. She and her team have to erect a 30ft artificial tree that will form the centrepiece of an outdoor skating rink, then adorn it with 24,000 lights and 1000 baubles. It’s a slightly more daunting task than locating the perfect poinsettia to set off your dinner table.
The Christmas Decorators spread cheer to big kids and little. Source: Strident Media
A marvel of make-believe, the head-spinning edifice has 800 detachable branches. They need to be attached to a metal frame that’s then concealed from sight by “faffing” each one to its full spruce. Shobna, who once was a jeweller, is an exacting boss who aims for the stars when it comes to perfection. The only trick is that their giant, 6ft5 star set to shine at the pinnacle isn’t working. This is just one of many hiccups that try to thwart the decorators, but they are an indomitable bunch who refuse to let the Grinch ruin Christmas.
That includes working around a giant, not-in-a-hurry-to-inflate teddy bear that’s preventing them from completing their glorious do-over of Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, on home territory in Liverpool. The panic is banished by the morn when the young patients awake to find, wide-eyed, that they’ve been transported to a North Pole-like wonderland.
A Nutcracker-inspired design for Blenheim Palace in Woodstock – the only stately home of its kind that gets to use the P-word in Britain even though it’s not actually a royal residence – is also wowzas. But the decorators make it look easy, even though the reality is often quite different. Popping up the centrepiece tree in the Blenheim job is all the trickier because they’re not allowed to bring any heavy-lifting equipment onto the tiled floors of the palace. Everything has to be done by hand.
Some of these Christmas miracles occur on a heart-palpitating timetable, such as their luxurious trimming for London’s exclusive private members’ retreat, the Lansdowne Club. Decorators Nick and Sarah have planned their wreath and tree-preening down to the very last minute, knowing full well they have just over an hour between breakfast and lunch service to get it done. Watching them whirl is enough to make you need a good sit down and a stiff eggnog.
Transforming Blenheim Palace: ‘The Luxury Christmas Decorators’. Source: Strident Media
With every challenge that crops up – including giant metallic snowflakes that need to be welded down to size – The Christmas Decorators work to make their gleamingly gorgeous designs materialise. As they disappear into the night, like Santa and his helpers, the joy they leave behind is evident in the faces of every member of the public interviewed.
Is it any surprise, then, that they’ve also been called on to pizzazz the homes of superstars like Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, plus the Queen of Christmas herself: Mariah Carey. Apparently it’s not true, then, that she doesn’t want a lot for Christmas…
The Luxury Christmas Decorators airs at 7.30pm on SBS on Saturday 25 December.
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