The commercial take on Christmas is informed entirely by American films. It’s chestnuts broken open by bemittened fingers sending steam into cold night air dusted with the first snowflakes; beautiful women snuggled into chiselled-jawed chaps in natty sweaters on a sledge through Central Park; fir trees twinkling with fairy lights in large living rooms where people laugh around a roaring fire.For most retailers, the reality is very different. It’s fraught husbands desperately trying to find that special gift in the 10 minutes before closing time on the last shopping day before the 25th; recalcitrant children with sticky fingers touching just-cleaned windows while their mother shops; or staff ending up near to psychological collapse as they show another person the entire charm beads display.Although you can’t account for your customers, pre-planning will help minimise any back-room panic. And there is no time like the present.“We have already had several staff meetings about our Christmas windows, with a lot more to follow,” says Jeremy France, owner of UK Jewellery Award finalist Jeremy France Jewellers in Winchester.Its windows are legendary in the town, so no wonder the staff start early. This year’s theme is the 12 days of Christmas. “Each group had the remit to design a stage setting for each of their windows taking two days of Christmas each,” says France. “These start to the left and go right round the shop in sequence. We have already started the build.”Risk of fatigue However you need to be careful how early you get your shop feeling festive. While it may be tempting to copy the big guns and start playing Christmas tunes before the barbecues have sold out, you risk giving your customers festive fatigue.“I read an article from an expert on store displays and he said Christmas windows are only effective for 10 days. After that it becomes irrelevant,” says Jutta Pfannkuch, owner of City-based jewellery boutique Little 15 Jewellery. “I tend to wait until mid-November to do something.”And Pfannkuch doesn’t go for the traditional look. “Our store design isn’t traditional so we tend to go for something more original,” she says.Once you’ve sorted out your festive design concept the next thing to take care of is your stock levels. People aren’t going to be coming in for the same things they would be all year round and you will probably be attracting clientele who have never shopped with you before, so it is best to make like a boy scout and be prepared.“We tend to stock up on big brands of the moment, such as Links of London, Thomas Sabo, Trollbeads and Pandora,” says David Clarke, owner of WE Clarke and Sons in Lewes, East Sussex. “We also make sure we have sufficient diamond jewellery from our own collection.”France opts for everything from the avant garde to basic silver and he starts as early as September. “We start to stock up at IJL [International Jewellery London], where we look for new products and source silver items we may not carry the rest of the year,” he says. “We also import the more extravagant pieces viewed at Inhorgenta in Munich especially for Christmas and have our Hong Kong suppliers visit to show us their latest diamond ranges.”France also has a word of advice for ordering from big brand names.“Order up in very large quantities, well in advance,” he says. discount true religion jeans“We have been let down at Christmas so often; it’s as though Christmas is a big surprise to them and they never carry enough stock.”People powerWith all your thought for your customers and stock levels it is natural that you think your staff will just cope. However, the long hours and customers who are slightly more tense than usual can take its toll on your team, particularly if they are having to work between Christmas and New Year when most of their friends are lying on a couch watching bad movies.“Things such as long hours are really a problem if they are ongoing over a period of time: the odd long working week is not usually a problem for people’s health provided things aren’t too busy in other areas of their life: people do need recovery time,” says Professor Kevin Daniels, who is professor of organisational psychology at the Business School at Loughborough University. “For most everyday problems at work, such as difficult customers or a particularly busy period during the working day, people can usually sort themselves out with the right resources. This may mean allowing people some control over when they take breaks, so they can take breaks at periods when they are feeling fatigued rather than at predetermined times.”“Where problems occur, it may also mean allowing people some control over decisions, so that problems with customers can be sorted out quickly rather than having to go through several layers of command. Rotating tasks or allowing people to do more challenging or creative work can help with interest and motivation.”Staff support However, Daniels does recommend that if you are going to give your staff more autonomy over the Christmas period than they would normally have, don’t just throw them in at the deep end.“If you are going to give people the autonomy to make some decisions to solve problems at source or do more challenging work, they will need both the skills and support to do so, which means good selection, training and management practices,”buy cheap True religion he says.Once you’ve sorted out your staff’s mental health, how do you decide who works when over Christmas?Clarke says: “It is always a tough one, as we want to be open for as long as possible, though I recognise it is important to give the staff a bit of time with families over this period. We always try to remain open every day in December until Christmas Eve. After is not so important for us.France remains closed from December 24 to January 2 as a thank you to staff for working a six-day week in the run-up to Christmas.We know it’s only August and summer has only just got its backside off the couch but only by preparing now can you make your festive season into something that looks like a still from an American film, rather than the opening scenes of a Christmas Carol.