How much work does it take to transform West Edmonton Mall into a winter wonderland?

Decorating West Edmonton Mall for Christmas Nahreman Issa finds out how staff decorate West Edmonton Mall for Christmas.

West Edmonton Mall is dressed to the nines in Christmas finery and between the lights, trees and decorations, it wasn't easy to do.

Getting everything ready takes months of planning and labour, staff began preparations in June.

"We are essentially working around the clock during the setup period," said Ken Christensen, the mall's creative director.

"We have people putting up lights at night, decorating at night, fluffing in the daytime."

As far back as August, trees outside the mall were wrapped while it was still warm, before preparations moved inside.

"Then it turns into bringing in 12 to 13 semi trailers of decor that come in on a timed schedule," Christensen said.

It took staff around 20 days to get all those decorations up.

Christensen couldn't share the mall's holiday decoration budget, aside from saying "it's a lot," but did say it takes around 25,000 man hours for the logistics and setup.

"We sort of have a go-to Christmas book where everybody kind of knows what they need to do," said Yohan Son, the mall's visual design manager.

"We're actually working after hours, overnight starting October, so a lot of stuff happens in the background."

The mall has around 30,480 metres (100,000 feet) of lights that it puts up, which Christensen estimates to be around 500,000 bulbs. This is on top of tens of thousands of ornaments.

"We do have a lot of pressure to be the best," Christensen said.

"We do have a lot of great guest feedback that encourages us to do more and involve us in their family traditions."

One of the focal points is the 10.6 metre-tall (35 feet) Europa Boulevard tree on the west side of the mall, which took a team of several people around four days to put up.

"The guest experience is what drives our whole team and seeing those reactions and those pictures and seeing online how people share their experience here at West Edmonton Mall during the holidays, it really drives our team to do the best and make sure everything looks good at all times," Christensen said.

Some of the decor on the Europa tree is crystals saved from an old Fantasyland Hotel chandelier.

Recycling decorations is also how the mall ended up with the Christmas ball tree in the food court, which used to be a poinsettia tree.

"With our other properties we often share decor back and forth, or if our other malls aren't using something, we will bring that on to our team and share," Christensen said.

"It saves costs, gives the decor new life and keeps it out of the landfill."

Teardown begins after Boxing Day, though the mall doesn't remove everything right away.

"We try to keep some up throughout the winter season after just so there are some lights during the dark, dismal days that we have here," Christensen said.

"Our job, in general, is a huge endeavor, because we always have to be thinking about what's next and be prepared."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nahreman Issa