4 Businesses Clinging to Santa's Sleigh

NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- 'Tis the season to be busy, especially for some holiday-centric businesses.

It's not hard to see how an entrepreneur can profit from the holiday season. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday shoppers plan to spend more than $465 billion this year -- an average of $705 per person. Approximately 26% of that is going toward decorations, greeting cards, candy, food and flowers, the NRF says.

People who love Christmas sometimes need professionals to provide and set up decorations -- but that's a business need for a matter of weeks out of a very long year.

But a business that relies mainly on the four-week period between Thanksgiving and Christmas begs the question: How do sustain a business for the other 11 months of the year?

There are several ways to handle being a seasonal business. Owners can embrace it by planning cash flow and operations around the busy season. Companies can diversify into a business that provides revenue during the offseason. A third avenue is to just extend the product line overall so that the business leans away from being so, well, seasonal.

We spoke with four businesses on how they deal with owning Christmas business.