American Christmas: Decorating New York City and Beyond with Fred Schwam

19 Year Old Shrink

In this episode, I interview Fred Schwam, former owner and CEO of American Christmas. This company is focused on commercial holiday decorating throughout New York City and around the world. Fred took over the company when he was just 21 years old and describes his 30+ years of experience building up the company to where it is today. He started off as the production person, bookkeeper, truck driver, decorator, and salesperson.
For the first 9 years of his career, he hadn’t seen any huge results despite the amount of hard work and precision he had in the company’s processes. He would go to every building in New York City and would ask if they decorated for the holidays, and a lot of times got rejected. But, he continued to persist and his efforts led to signing with Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall in 1997 to display their famous Christmas decorations.
Once signing these deals, he began getting noticed among the industry and by other big brands that would ultimately make his company the face of New York Christmas. His humble beginning in the industry and choosing to go forward without knowing it all brought much of his success that I had the pleasure to learn about. If you’ve ever watched the scenes in Home Alone, Elf, and other Christmas movies and want to learn more about the face behind the decorations, tune in!