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But Christmas is another type of creature. You can't just decorate a window and call it quits. "In the old store, we had these dusty decorations that had been around for years," said Barron LeFever, who is part of the crew over in our Dania Beach warehouse. Since nobody wanted to use the old decorations in the new store, Barron took it upon himself to make new ones--from scratch.

Barron, who has a degree in interior design from the University of Chicago and who owned an interior design business before coming to work for Bluewater, started the project a year ago. When he started, he was adamant about one thing: "No reds and greens this Christmas," he said. "We’re in Florida. Why would we want to look at the same decorations that they’re looking at in New York City?"

Barron estimates that he spent over 120 hours creating the decorations, which he worked on between making his daily product-runs back and forth between Bluewater's Dania Beach warehouse and Ft. Lauderdale store.

"Even if I had to do it December 24, I was determined to get those decorations up," he said. Because he was doing all of the work over at the warehouse, very few people at the store knew what he was doing until he showed up early one morning at the beginning of December with the decorations. It was a pleasant surprise.

"It makes us look like one of those fancy department stores," said Toni Barber. Barron has used his design skills elsewhere, decorating several hotel lobbies on Ft. Lauderdale Beach. His style is defined by a careful arrangement of found and made things.

Barron purchased the materials for the decorations from different locations, including Michaels, Home Depot, the Rag Shop, Christmas Place and Big Lots. And when he couldn't find something in a store, he looked elsewhere. "I'd be taking a bike ride," he said, "and I'd stop in the park and collect a few pine cones. For a hotel I was doing a few years ago, I actually went through people's yards to find the right sized branches. I was painting them gold and wiring them to wreaths." The people, of course, gave him permission to go through their yards.

The most striking part of these decorations are the fish ornaments that Barron created using several plaster casts. He painted them all gold, and he used gold paint on seashells for ornaments that decorate the giant three in the center of our store. The tree is also decorated with small boat ornaments, but Barron wanted to be sure that it wasn’t gaudy or overly nautical. "It’s the same idea you’d use in your home," he said. "It’s really easy to overdecorate, and the result is a gaudy Christmas tree." He stuck to plain white lights, gold bows, fish and simple wooden boats.

"The best thing about these decorations," Barron said, "is that they'll be easier to put together next year. I didn’t glue anything. It's all wired, so everything will come apart easily."

Toni and her team made another smart move: they went through the store and chose items that are popular gifts, like some of our nautical games and coffee table books. They spent a whole day pre-wrapping many of these and putting them on display. This way, our customers don’t have to stand around and wait while their gifts are being wrapped. Already, this has saved everyone a lot of time on last minute shopping.

Bluewater will be open up to the last minute, with Sunday hours of 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM between now and Christmas. Stop by and finish up your shopping, and check out Barron’s decorations. Maybe you’ll get some ideas for your home or boat. But be warned: we heard that Barron broke the mold on his fish ornaments, so there’s no way to copy them.