03 Dec 2023 Artist of the Month: Christina Gore

By Donna Lampkin Stephens

Christina Gore loves all things Christmas, and by Halloween, she is listening to carols and in the thick of the season.

Through the last weeks of the year, Gore, 40, owner of Christina Gore Design Studio, manages 28 Christmas clients along with her usual decorator workload of new residential construction and light commercial design.

“Christmas fell into my lap when some of my clients said, ‘I need help putting up Christmas,’ and one client led to another,” Gore said. “It is the busiest time of the year. Most all of my Christmas clients are repeat, and I usually have a waiting list. I’ve had several people on there for several years.”

After all, there are only so many days between Nov. 1 and the first week of December.

“I usually [decorate] a house a day until the end of the first week of December,” Gore said. “And my normal projects don’t stop for the holidays. The contractors and sub-contractors can’t wait for you. It is a juggle, but I do love it.

“I love that I can provide that service for those long-term clients. It’s always my favorite when it comes full circle—to go in and help with someone’s Christmas when I helped with their floor plan from the beginning. You’re building a place for them to create memories, and that is very special to me. I love being able to have that personal connection with my clients.”

Gore, who graduated from Bryant High School, earned an interior design degree from the University of Central Arkansas in 2004. From there, she and her husband, Sean, moved to Nashville, Tenn., where he attended dental school and she worked for an architecture firm. After four years he finished his degree, and the couple returned to the 501 for his career.

After staying home for a few years with their three children, Christina returned to the workforce nearly 10 years ago with a bit of a change of focus.

“It was always the goal to have my business,” she said. “At first I thought I wanted to work for an architecture firm and do more of the corporate side of it, and I did that for a little bit, schools and corporations, some larger-scale commercial projects. But after I started here and there for friends, getting more into residential work, I really loved it. I do a lot of new builds and work a lot with builders and clients from the ground up.”

She said she had never wanted a retail space.

“It’s really hard to be the designer you want to be and run a complete store,” she said. “I would rather spend more time engrossed in my client’s project than having to worry about numbers for my store.”

She begins that project by getting to know the client.

“Do they have kids? Do they have pets? How do they live?” she said. “I ask them to send me an inspiration pic of something they like, and I look at what they already have, and we decide, ‘How do we make this as beautiful as we can?’”

Her Christmas work is guided by a few other threads.

“Where will you open the presents? Where will you sit the most?” she said. “I want them to be able to see the tree, and on Christmas morning, they should be surrounded by their pretty decor. If they have kids or cats, we don’t use a lot of glass ornaments. We try to dive into how they live. We want it to be functional for them.”

Color-wise, she said her clients are about equally split between wanting red, which goes with everything, and neutrals—flocked trees, golds and whites.

“You can never go wrong with either,” she said. “There’s been a lot of traditional green in the markets. You see a little bit of everything at Christmas, even navy blue. It all goes away and comes back.”

Her own home holiday decor features multiple trees, including a 12-footer with a woodland theme in the entryway; a flocked one that looks like it’s been covered with snow, loaded with red ribbons, frosted berries, pinecones and branches with special sentimental ornaments in the living room; and individual trees for each of the children.

For an additional charge, she will “un-decorate” after the holidays, packing everything, labeling and storing in bins that the client will then store until the next year.

“The following year, we’ll get all that out, and (decorating) goes so much faster,” she said. “Most people always use their same stuff, but we may tweak it a little bit, add more red, or more ribbon here, and sometimes the client may pick up something extra, too, that we are happy to incorporate.”

Her 2023 schedule has been booked for months. “I usually start scheduling by the beginning of August, and by mid-September, it’s finalized,” she said. To see more of her work, visit her Facebook page at Christina Gore Design Studio.

After the Varela family lost their home to a fire in January 2020, they decided to rebuild and asked Gore to finish out the interior. “I had the honor of helping them furnish and style their home,” she said. 

“Their Christmas tree is a beautiful, flocked tree that is full and luxurious. It’s full of white, gold, silver and pale aqua ornaments. It’s so calming, and I just love that it is completely coordinated with their soothing ribbon.”

The exterior of the home features a natural look mixed with glittering pinecones and garland, which pairs perfectly with their wooded property. 

“My favorite story is regarding the staircase décor,” Gore said. “It was their first holiday in the new house, and after pricing out the stair garland, Amy had decided to wait; however, when we were decorating, her husband asked if we could surprise her with the matching staircase. It is beyond stunning and feels so relaxing when you are hanging out in there!”