“About Sept. 1, this building is so full you can barely walk,” Kamysiak said, veering the tour past depleted-but-still-substantial stacks of wooden planters and miniature sleds, boxes of giant pine cones and cute, woodsy wheelbarrows.

The beginning of December is nearly the end of the Christmas rush at Maple Ridge Supply, a local company that supplies holiday decor-makings with an Up North touch to over 800 customers all over the U.S.

What began in the late 1970s as a side job harvesting greens from local forests for extra income eventually became Maple Ridge Supply, a busy business tucked into a quiet, woodsy spot northwest of Alpena. The company, which at one time created holiday decor to sell to end-purchasers, now specializes in designing, gathering, and packaging the goods retailers need to assemble and sell the holiday decorations seen at this time of year in garden centers and roadside stops, or offered for sale by Scout troops or as a fun group fundraiser.

The main building of Maple Ridge Supply is a maze of storage and work rooms, every corner used to house the cheerful supplies destined to be turned into wreaths, garland, decorative pots, or other holiday pretties. Several rooms are dedicated just to ribbon, enormous spools of red velvet or green-and-mauve plaid ready to be turned into hand-made bows or tucked into a shipment to a retailer. Other shelves hold glinting balls or picks of red berries so realistic it’s hard to not snap one up for a nibble.

Planters, decorative fireplace bundles, and tiny wheelbarrows nest in a storage building at Maple Ridge Supply, ready for distribution.

The floors and high shelves hold quaint wooden designs, piles and piles of them — pint-sized rocking chairs, trellises big and small, boxes made of lath from tobacco farms, planters built by an Amish woman out of weathered Pennsylvania barn wood.

The wooden goods are built elsewhere — Kamysiak would like to build them in-house, but a shortage of available labor makes that impossible — but are designed by Kamysiak as he tries to offer something new to his customers each Christmas season.

A part of northern Michigan — 150 tons of it so far this year — travels with most of the shipments Kamysiak sends to his customers, who provide holiday decorations to areas as diverse as Texas, the United Kingdom, downtown Chicago, and colonial Williamsburg. Fresh greens from Michigan woods offer the smell of Christmas, their touch-me softness complementing the bows and baubles that accompany them.

In recent years, Kamysiak said, most of his Michigan greens, which in early fall rest in huge mounds on his property before they are shipped, come from west of I-75. He’d rather use brush from woods and farms on the east side.

“People who own the land don’t know what they have,” said Kamysiak, for whom harvested tree branches are a source of profit, as well as beauty.

Branches from some locally trimmed trees are used to make cute winter reindeer planters.

What’s more, he said, most people don’t realize that the valuable, piney-scented commodity of northern Michigan only lasts an average of three years before losing its viability.

When trees grow close together, Kamysiak explained, their branches eventually intertwine, blocking sunlight and causing needles to drop, making the beautiful brush of the trees no longer usable for decoration, “income that’s going to go, ‘Poof.'”

Careful harvesting not only provides a profit for whoever owns the tree — the business pays 15 times what someone could earn by cutting down and chipping a tree, Kamysiak said — it also keeps the tree more beautiful and green year-round.

Though the fresh-smelling greens shipped by Maple Ridge Supply can be tucked into pots as-is, many retailers want to use them to create wreaths or garland. Kamysiak offers a solution to that sometimes-labor-intensive project: two machines he designed and patented about 35 years ago.

One machine, which Kamysiak designed when none of the other options on the market fit his needs, tidily wraps, coils, and measures garland, ready to be elegantly draped over a doorway or wrapped around a railing. A second machine, also available for sale to interested businesses, simplifies the task of wreath-making, using foot-power to pinch soft greens into a sturdy wire frame.

Flanked by ribbons, festive florals, and other holiday decoration-makings, Maple Ridge Supply owner Jerry Kamysiak is ready to send Christmas cheer to garden shops, pop-up holiday stands, and fundraising groups all over the country. Behind Kamysiak is a wreath-making machine he invented to simplify a holiday task.

In yet another storage room, a few finished wreaths lay at the feet of bare birch and cedar trunks, leaned against one wall and ready to be dried and made, during the business’s busy, creative summer months, into perky reindeer and serious-faced snowmen.

“There’s so much to be made with this stuff,” Kamysiak said, bustling through his warehouse, enthusiastically pointing out yet another room full of holiday goods, ready to help a business succeed and brighten someone’s Christmas.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.

Watering can-shaped planters hold Up North greenery and then do double-duty as a spring decoration, one of the many designs ready for shipping to retail stores by Maple Ridge Supply.

Spools of ribbon wait to be turned into a festive bow or tucked into a shipment to a retailer ready to make holiday decor to sell to eager customers.