With the average Australian family expected to spend more than $500 on festive trimmings, Sarah Harris discovers it’s Claus and effect in the very merry retail sector where all the business comes at once.CHRISTMAS is a time when going on the beat takes on a whole new meaning for policeman Laurie Carter.
Every year since he was 13 Laurie has rejoined the team at Ray’s Traditional Home-Made Plum Puddings factory in Essendon North for a seasonal labour of love.
It’s 61 years since Ray Carter (no relation to Laurie) and his wife Norma established the family pudding business, now run by son Ross.
Over three intense months, Ross, who works as a veterinarian the rest of the year, oversees production of between 45,000 and 50,000 Christmas puddings using a total of 27 tonnes of sun muscats, raisins and currants as well as three tonnes of mixed peel.
“We use premium ingredients and it’s still 100 per cent handmade,’’ Ross Carter says.
‘‘It’s a real family business and that’s how I want to keep it. That is what’s made it successful. I would have rocks in my head to change it.
“This is the first year Dad hasn’t been involved. He’s 83 and unfortunately he broke his neck in May. He had four or five months of rehabilitation before getting into a wheelchair and is now walking five to 10 metres.
‘‘He’s itching to get back to work so we have ordered a wheelchair-access car, then he can start coming in again.”
This Christmas Day, the extended Carter family, like tens of thousands of others, will sit down to a Ray’s pud with a special addition.
“Dad has a supply of threepences and sixpences which he has used since I was a kid,’’ Ross says. ‘‘He makes sure he hangs on to them by buying them back at a dollar and two dollars a pop,” he adds with a laugh.
It’s the part the pudding plays in tradition that’s magical.
“Christmas Day is the one day where we try to sit back and do stuff we were doing 40 years ago exactly the same way. Christmas never ages.”
With the pud on the table comes the towering pine in the lounge, many of which will come from the Melton Christmas Tree Farm — the largest plantation of its kind in Victoria, if not Australia, with 28 hectares of trees.
The business, started by Michael Iuele in 1987 and now run by his sons, Fabian and Paul, has grown, so to speak, to the extent where between 5000 and 10,000 trees will be cut on the property this year.
“When we first started out we used to grow our trees naturally,’’ Fabian says. ‘‘They were never trimmed and weren’t that uniform. But we noticed a change in the demand for the shape of trees copied from trends in the United States.
“People want the perfect trimmed six-foot Christmas tree,” Fabian adds.
Each tree is drip-irrigated using recycled water and, with trimming, takes four years to grow to the desired height and shape.
A number of the pines will go to wholesalers, but many will be cut by the families who have selected their own “perfect” tree from rows of beautifully symmetrical specimens.
“We price-tag every tree on the place,’’ Fabian says, ‘‘and we give people a bow-saw and they bring the kids out and choose whatever tree they want and they know what they are spending, so everyone is happy.”
Fabian’s tree maintenance advice is to make sure it has plenty of water with a few teaspoons of sugar added, and keep it out of direct sunlight.
Another more important tip comes from Cohn, of Aussie Claus, a lighting specialist whose renowned annual Christmas display at Plumpton drew 57,000 spectators last year.
“DO NOT use indoor lights on your tree,” he warns. “They must be outdoor and low voltage so it doesn’t run hot. People’s trees ignite more than you think and the fire is invariably caused by cheap, indoor lights.’’
Cohn used to work in demolition and earthworks. He saw the light at the end of his last big job on the Jacana tunnel about 15 years ago.
He’s now responsible for lighting some of Australia’s best-loved TV shows, including Neighbours and Kath and Kim, and dressing up such icons as the Sydney Harbour Bridge for special occasions, which included providing 10,000 metres of rope lights for the 2000 Olympic rings.
But Christmas is his staple.
“You’d be shocked what some people spend on this stuff. You know how women fib about the price of clothes and shoes? Well, I have blokes buy up in here and then ask me to change the price on lights,” Cohn laughs.
“People come in and say it’s just for the kids, but I’ve never had a kid give me a dollar yet.”
Perhaps surprisingly when it comes to Christmas decorating, he’s a fan of the less-is-more school. “Really, I like a nice twinkle and a few bows — it looks classier. JC had none of this stuff — it’s all luxuries.”
The development of LED lights and lasers has made a huge difference to the home decorator. “Take this candleset,” Cohn says. “You can run 30 of these for the cost of one of the old incandescents.
“With mini-lasers you can light up your roof for a couple of hundred dollars versus one or two thousand. You get a better effect and noone has to risk breaking their neck.”
Of course, climbing on the roof is especially unsafe in the ... snow!
For the ultimate accessory for the traditional Christmas, people count on the delightfully named Dean Sunshine, the master of snow.
The name is real. “My parents escaped out of Poland and translated their name from Sonnenschein, which literally means sunshine,” Dean says.
The snow comes in three varieties: dry, theatre (both made of different densities of shredded recycled plastic) and faux (made from a powdered polymer to which water is added to grow it to 100 times its original size).
But you’d hardly guess it was anything artificial from the squeals of delight as the flakes from one of Dean’s 50 snow machines drift down upon an enchanted crowd.
“Making snow while the sun shines,” Dean laughs. “ I’ve been doing this for 10 years now. It’s such a fun product. The minute you turn the machines on, kids just go mad.
“Initially, it was only for Christmas, but over the years it turned into a winter market as well, with winter fashion week, winter launches, the ski season, and then on to window displays.
“We do a lot of private house parties and corporate events. We did the big MTV party recently where we filled a whole warehouse full of snow, which was unbelievable. It took 25 11-kilogram cartons of theatre snow.”
Snow scenes in the Australian action film Killer Elite, starring Robert de Niro, and Willem Dafoe’s The Hunter, shot in Tasmania, were created using SnowMasters Australia snow-making machines.
“To be able to make it snow in the city is special; I love it, ” Dean says standing in his Brunswick warehouse surrounded by boxes containing thousands of kilos of as yet undriven snow.
For the razzle-dazzle of Christmas, year-round, it seems there’s no business like snow business.
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