Outsourcing comes to holiday decorating

At a Hastings Road home in Winchester, Mark Decristoforo of Christmas Décor unfurls a ball of Christmas lights onto a spruce tree in the front yard. The price of hiring a holiday decorating company can cost up to $10,000. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

The trees are strung, the faux reindeer are on the lawn, and the Christmas lights are carefully mounted around the windows at the Fador family's house in Winchester.

But the best part of the family's display is that homeowners Ellen and Bruce Fador didn't have to spend hours fiddling with strings of lights or dragging out any ladders. In the latest trend of hiring help for the holidays, the Fadors used a professional holiday lighting service that designed, installed, maintained, removed, and stored their lighting display.

"As life gets more hectic and busy, we freed up a lot of time by having our lights installed," says Ellen Fador. The display isn't lighted yet - the family plans to turn it on Dec. 1. "No more hassling with burnt-out lights on a freezing cold day."

Well-heeled consumers increasingly are outsourcing the holiday task of decorating the interior or exterior of their homes. It's a job that concierge and errand services will do, as well as lawn and landscaping companies who keep busy during the off-season by installing holiday lighting.

The price of hiring a holiday decorating company can range from $500 to $10,000, but most lighting projects cost between $1,400 and $1,500, says Todd Lieb, Winchester-based owner of Christmas Décor by Green-Lawn, a nationwide franchise that specializes in commercial and residential custom lighting.

The company visits your home, writes up a proposal that includes installation details (no nails or screws are used), then sends a crew to decorate and maintain the lawn and home, including roofs, windows, trees and shrubs, stake lighting, and garlands and greenery. Other companies, such as Needham's GoodDeeds, specialize in interior holiday lighting and décor, acting as one-stop holiday service companies.

Lieb says the rewards of decorating someone's home are heartwarming. He still gets Christmas cards from one Winchester family who went out for the day and returned just as the holiday lights were being turned on by the crew, which was testing the wiring. "The girls got out of the car and were so excited by all the lights that they skipped up the driveway."

Brad Finkle, author of "Holiday Hero: A Man's Manual For Holiday Lighting," says the difference between an amateur lighting job and a specialist is striking. "A professional display will have a cleaner look and pay more attention to detail," says Finkle, who estimates he'll install more than 1 million lights this year as part of his Midwest-based Creative Decorating company, which has won awards from the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America for his residential and commercial displays.

Finkle is based in Nebraska, where over-the-top, gaudy displays have long been a neighborhood staple. But here in New England, Lieb says, "We're still getting used to this idea of decorating. We are more conservative here, and it's different - many people don't want to light up the house like a carnival, as in Florida or Texas."

Most of his customers request white lighting, he says, although red, green, and multicolored lighting schemes are gaining in popularity. "One customer said, 'I want white, but the kids want colored, and this isn't about me, but for the children,' " he says.