Company that plans for Christmas decorations now

• Scott LaMar
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

A beautiful display of Christmas lights brighten a dark snowy evening.

Airdate: August 12, 2022

It’s August – temperatures have been in the 90s for the past week. Schools haven’t opened yet and the football season and crisp fall weather are a few weeks away.

But there’s a local business that wants their customers to start thinking about the holidays and specifically Christmas decorations. It’s called Christmas Décor of Harrisburg.

On Friday’s Smart Talk, the company’s owner, Nikos Phelps told us,”The one thing that we have found out over the years is that we have a limited window to get Christmas lights up for the holidays and we have yet to find anybody who would like them installed after Christmas. So for us, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get folks to start thinking about the holiday season so we can get them on our calendar and get them up and running and taken care of so that when the holiday season they’re planning for the dinners and shopping for gifts comes around, they don’t even have to worry about it.”

Phelps said Christmas Decor meets with customers, helps them plan their displays, sets up all the lights — lights the company supplies — and tears them down after the holiday.

What do most people like? “When we first started about 14 years ago, we everything was about 95% warm white lights. And as the years have gone by, we find color to be more and more common. And maybe it’s you know, maybe somebody has thrown in some red. So it’s white and red or red, right. Red, white and green. And what we’re finding now is probably about 40% of our displays have some element of color. And because because people have the ability to change things from year to year, some people get creative. So you’ll have like purple and white or purple, white and blue or blue and green and so we’ve kind of seen the whole spectrum of it.”