Every Christmas, Alistair Floral Design in Birkirkara transforms into Alistair Christmas Shop.

We reached out to Alistair Fenech to see whether the COVID-19 pandemic dampened this year’s festive spirit.

“If it did, people didn’t get the memo,” notes Mr Fenech with a smile. “Sales are on par with previous years, even a bit better.”

“Of course,” he continues, “the season has mainly passed now. No one’s buying a Christmas tree in mid-December.”

On the whole, however, he is pleased with this year’s sales, and credits the restrictions on travel and public gatherings for the positive figures.

“People can’t go out, can’t travel... The usual activities people tend to spend money on are not available, so it is no surprise that they spend it to bring more festive cheer into their own home.”

Alistair Christmas Shop, as the shop styles itself during the festive season, launched an online shop, mindful of the possibility of a second lockdown.

A similar exercise undertaken for Mother’s Day saw huge demand, with the shop making flower deliveries to mothers all over the island.

The online Christmas shop was not as successful, but Mr Fenech is not in the least bit disappointed.

“We wanted to be ready in case of a lockdown, but since no further restrictions on retail outlets were imposed, it was expected that people would rather come into the shop to see our offerings for themselves.”

Nonetheless, Mr Fenech believes the website is still a worthwhile investment that enabled vulnerable individuals and those living with them to be part of the Christmas celebrations without putting themselves at risk.

Additionally, he notes, many customers had opted to first look at the website for ideas before coming into the shop.

“We had quite a few people coming in saying, ‘I saw this tree on the website, where is it?’ So despite sales from the website being relatively few, it still served its purpose.”

Another service Alistair Christmas Shop offers is professional decoration, typically serving a range of household, corporate and hotel clients.

Such service, Mr Fenech tells me, is usually fully booked. This year, with few companies and hotels investing in professional decorations, the team was able to service more household clients.

“We did decorate more homes this year,” he says, “but that had more to do with the relative lack of other clients than anything else. We simply had more time to fulfil more personal requests.”

He believes the same factors that influenced an uptick in sales played a role in this appetite for professional decoration.

“There were certainly people who said, ‘This year we want a proper Christmas tree’. But that is also not quite so different from previous years – we regularly have the pleasure of serving new clients who approach us for the kind of expert decoration we excel at.”

With Christmas fast approaching, Mr Fenech closed by wishing our readers a peaceful festive season full of cheer and joy, along with an appeal to take care of those vulnerable family members who may have suffered more than most this year.

“Christmas is about colour, fun, and celebrations,” he said, “but most of all it is about family. Take care of it!”