Inside a dimly lit, pine-scented workshop at the Creekside Farm Market barn on Route 772 in Manheim, Pam Heller and her adult children spent the 2014 holiday season “sprucing up the firs.” Their business, Shady Creek Wreaths, turns Fraser fir boughs into hand-made wreaths, swags and Victorian kissing balls, and it has become a holiday tradition for families from Lititz and across central Pennsylvania.
From garage to family business
Pam Heller started the business in her garage about 16 years earlier, at the urging of her in-laws, whom she had helped make wreaths. The first year she sold a few. The next year sales doubled, and the year after that they doubled again. Eventually she enlisted her children, who now run much of the operation.
She joked that she is no longer the boss, to the delight of her daughter, Erin. Erin, a landscaper with a horticulture degree from Delaware Valley College, also decorates homes with the family’s creations. Her brother, Josh, who farms and lives in Lititz, helps with deliveries, and sister Thera cuts greens and helps customers.
On a busy December day, soup warmed on the wood stove while the family tied bows, hot-glued ornaments and trimmed greens.
Loyal customers
Sue Swope of Mount Joy found the stand after a disappointing trip to a tree farm. On the way home she and her husband stopped at Creekside and found several fresh, healthy trees. She has returned ever since, and in 2014 brought her husband, daughter and son-in-law. When she and her daughter picked the same tree, mom deferred and chose another, and both went home happy.
Swope said she liked supporting a small business and found the prices extremely fair. Erin said one of the joys of the job is seeing the same families each year and remembering their orders.
Customer Peggy Randolph appreciated that the Hellers would customize a wreath, adding orange ornaments to match her door. She said the wreaths last a long time; the previous year she kept hers up through February.
Why Fraser firs last
The secret to a long-lasting wreath, Erin explained, is a hard frost. Frost sends the Fraser fir into dormancy, and a dormant fir holds its needles longer.
That is why the family travels to a relative’s tree farm in New York State on the last weekend of October each year. They have one day to cut as many overgrown and misshapen trees as they can and haul them back. In the workshop, boughs are sorted by size, clamped into frames and sprayed with a clear coat that seals in moisture before decorating begins.
Pam said it is all done with love, and that working together as a family is a blessing.
The kissing ball craze
Nothing goes to waste. Greens from 24 inches down to six inches are used, and the smallest pieces become the stand’s most popular item: the Victorian kissing ball, a round ball of greens hung in place of mistletoe. Erin takes boxes of stripped greens home and pokes them into foam balls one by one. The family sold 100 the year before and had already sold 80 by early December 2014.
Trees and a “marriage saver”
The Douglas and Fraser fir trees on the lot come from a York County tree farm. Erin noted that Christmas trees must be pruned and shaped in the heat of midsummer.
Young customers mostly cared about running between the trees and picking one to take home. Staff drilled a hole in the base of each tree and carried it to the car. One of the most practical items for sale was a tree stand nicknamed the “marriage saver,” which uses a single screw so a tree can be twisted into place standing straight, no argument required.
A seasonal stop
For many families, a visit to Shady Creek Wreaths at Creekside Farm Market has become part of the holiday routine, a chance to pick a tree, choose a wreath and support a local family business.