Making ‘Precious’ Holiday Memories
By Sharon White | Photos by Julie Doughty
On any given date, Seleese Thompson can tell you how many days are left until the next major holiday.
As the owner of Precious Memories Florist and Gift Shop, she is perpetually planning—always months in advance. “I begin every day by checking the countdown app on my phone,” she says. “And I begin every meeting or presentation by announcing how many more days there are until Christmas.” She admits that most people don’t want to be reminded of how much time is left until December 25, Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. “But,” she says, “it sure gets everyone thinking!”
She places orders for poinsettias in July. Now she’s already reserving the flowers she’ll need for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day in 2019. “I started developing ideas and placing orders over a year ago for this holiday season,” she says.
As a former product manager for Texas Instruments, Seleese has plenty of experience working with designers and engineers to plan and bring ideas to fruition—all on a tight timeline. These days, she uses those same organizational skills to run the business she purchased from its previous owner, Malissa Baugh, 15 years ago.
When customers walk into her shop, all they see are shimmering lights and holiday vignettes. But the stunning array of holiday trees and displays at Precious Memories isn’t just accidental. They are the result of thousands of hours of design, organization and implementation.
“I’ve always thought of myself as an organized person. As a child I remember making lots of lists. And my mom has always been organized. I think it’s just in our DNA,” she says, pointing to her desk, which is neatly arranged with piles of paper.
Seleese depends on a core of 15 staff members to make it all happen. “Each special occasion involves a team effort. There’s never just one horse and one rider when it comes to preparing for events,” she says. “So much of what we do here involves timing. My staff knows how it all works, and everyone pitches in to get things done.”
Seleese creates large-scale installations of holiday décor, including decorating for businesses, hospitals, banks and nursing centers—as well as for homeowners. She meets with clients months in advance to discuss ideas. “Sometimes we have free reign to design trees and décor, and sometimes companies and individuals have very specific ideas about how they want their space to look.” She says that businesses typically request very traditional decorations, while homeowners often want to incorporate more colors, trends and themes into their design.
Some holiday installations are kept very low key, with as little disruption as possible for the client. For example, when decorating Baylor Scott & White Medical Center, Seleese describes how she works with their security team and housekeeping department to ensure the experience is as nonintrusive as possible. “We slip in with our teams, totes and trees on Friday after hours and we work over the weekend. Every detail is finished by Monday morning.”
While some decorating jobs are completed with as little fanfare as possible, others are eagerly anticipated and are quite public. “When we travel to nursing homes or senior living centers to decorate,” Seleese says, “we are their floorshow! The day and time we’ll be arriving is actually posted on their weekly activity calendar. The residents come early and set up chairs so they can watch us ‘make it Christmas.’ And they have earned every right to sit back and watch someone else do the decorating.”
Decorating logistics for each location are a huge consideration. Seleese’s staff never knows what they will encounter—they often have to move heavy furniture, hunt down electrical outlets and find clever ways to hide cords to keep clients from tripping in high-traffic areas.
Seleese describes an event she held last July to unveil new gifts and cards in her shop. “We were dropping a red velvet curtain to introduce our new Hallmark Christmas collection. So we turned down the air conditioning and served hot chocolate. It was 110 degrees outside!”
She admits that the holiday season at Precious Memories is jam-packed. “It’s very physical work. I remind my staff to be sure and stay healthy during this time of year. I’m always reminding them, ‘Drink water! Get your flu shot!’”
She says she loves her work and she can tell when it’s been a satisfying, productive day with her staff. “Everything is very visual when you transform an ordinary space into something extraordinary,” Seleese confides. “There’s nothing quite like seeing the accomplishment of your hard work.”
Seleese has been involved with the trimming of hundreds of trees. For this year’s “A Simply Beautiful Christmas” theme in her shop, she and her designers took inspiration from movies and design trends.
As if decking out local homes, hospitals and businesses weren’t enough to keep her busy, Seleese and her Precious Memories team will also decorate 13 trees at the Horny Toad Harley-Davidson dealership this year for the Eighth Annual Chrome and Carols Festival of Trees fundraiser benefitting the United Way of Central Texas. “Each tree will have a different theme,” she explains. “We always look forward to this event, when we can use our time and talents to give back to the community.”
When it comes to her own Christmas tree, Seleese enjoys decorating it herself. “I will buy new ribbon and poinsettias from year to year,” she says. “But I personally love my own sentimental ornaments and my collection of Santas.”
So, this holiday season, as you enter your bank or pass through a hospital lobby, admiring the sparkling lights and glimmering trees—a bit of holiday magic that seemed to suddenly appear out of nowhere—consider the time and energy it took for those hard-working elves to put it there.
EIGHTH ANNUAL CHROME & CAROLS FESTIVAL OF TREES
(Benefitting the United Way of Central Texas)
December 6 at 6 p.m.
Horny Toad Harley-Davidson,
7454 S. General Bruce Drive, Temple
$55/person includes dinner catered by Classic Events, music by Frontier Sounds
Details: Call 254-778-8616 or UWCT.org/Events/Chrome-Carols
Thirteen trees, each loaded with gifts valued at more than $1,000, are decorated by Precious Memories and are raffled off. Live and silent auctions are held for other specialty items.
