As we gear up for the holiday season, pre-packaged gifts become ubiquitous in every retail store. Admit it, we have all been swayed to purchase that pair of pajamas tied up with a beautiful bow, or the set of chocolates or coffee in the attractive gift package. This same “make-it-a-gift” selling technique works for Valentine’s Day and floral too. Consumers love bows and are quite frankly in awe of people (that’s you floral designers) that can hand-tie a bow. Use your bow-tying ability to create a bigger sale.

I know, you don’t want to hear about Valentine’s Day yet; you haven’t even finished your Thanksgiving leftovers yet. But you know as well as I do that now is the time to get on the bandwagon and start preparing for the big Love Day headed our way.

It’s the same thing every year, right? Stress, stress, and more stress. OK, now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at some facts:

Is Valentine’s Day extremely busy? — Yes.

Do we all have to work like crazy and then lose sleep worrying about what didn’t get done, or should have been done? — Pretty much.

I love the month of December because it is full of so many different looks in our floral industry. There are seemingly endless options with the availability of Paper Whites and Amaryllis, unique blooming hydrangea plants, Zygo plants, Ornithogalum, gardenias and Calla lilies to add to the sales of the traditional Poinsettias, cyclamen, Christmas cactus and holiday mums. The key to increasing sales at this time of year is to keep all of the many holidays in mind.

The Amaryllis plant’s ability to grow incredibly quickly (sometimes gaining an inch or more a day) has inspired many people to “race” Amaryllis, according to a Jackson & Perkins press release. Whole offices participate in Amaryllis races, awarding ribbons to the plants that grew the fastest or produced the most beautiful blooms; and the latest trend is to compete with friends and family over Instagram using #AmaryllisChallenge.

MINNEAPOLIS — The 105-foot custom-built 18-wheeler, decorated with handwritten messages and signatures and carrying an 88-foot white spruce with a base diameter of 30 inches, arrived at the Boy Scout’s Northern Star Council’s Base Camp, here, its 16th of 32 whistle-stops en route to Washington, DC, from the Chippewa National Forest in north-central Minnesota. Accompanied by a second semi-trailer filled with 70 smaller companion trees and 10,000 handmade ornaments, and followed by several U.S. Forest Service escort vehicles containing Santa and Mrs.

The “Murder, Sex and Greed” animated awareness video produced by the American Floral Endowment has won its third communications award, a Thoth Award, from the National Capital Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, according to a news release. The video was developed to educate the floriculture industry about the positive effects the floral nedowment has on critical industry concerns.