The holiday season is creeping up and the businesses of Ames are doing their best to get ready for what some say is the busiest time of the year.

A few businesses have been preparing for months. Laurie Anderson has been the owner of Lyla’s Boutique for five months. Anderson said she has been gearing up on inventory, jewelry, accessories and scarves for the last month and a half.

“I haven’t really been through a complete year on the seasons yet but I have just been told, because [the boutique] has been here for over five years, that this is one of the busiest times of the year,” Anderson said.

Dan Brabec, owner of Coe’s Floral and Gifts, has been preparing for the holiday season a lot sooner than most businesses.

“As a store, we start preparing in July, so we have been pricing and putting out holiday merchandise since the end of July,” Brabec said.

Coe’s has also already had their holiday rush. The floral and gifts store sell a lot of holiday decorations during the Halloween season, Brabec said.

“We have already had our open houses, which were in the middle to end of October, so we’ve had a lot of our big rush come through already,” Brabec said.

Other businesses like Cupcake Emporium and Esscentual Alchemy are shifting to the festive mode as the holidays get closer.

Tawnya Zarr, owner of Cupcake Emporium, says she will be starting holiday flavors and gluten free pastries soon, just in time for vacation to start.

“We get a lot of students before they leave [for break] getting cupcakes for their family members,” Zarr said.

Amanda Freeley, owner of Esscentual Alchemy, makes a special fragrance solely for the holiday season.

“Christmas and Cookies is only available post-Thanksgiving to the end of the year,” Freeley said. “That is really the only thing that I do differently during the holidays.”

The majority of her business is done online. Fortunately, the fact that students leave for break doesn’t affect Esscentual Alchemy. Business continues on as usual, Freeley said.

However, for businesses like Lyla’s Boutique and Coe’s Floral and Gifts, the students who do go on vacation affect them.

“The town kind of goes quiet after the students leave, and business gets slower,” Brabec said.

Laurie Anderson said that due to the lack of students in August and January, her business will be negatively affected.

“August was our poorest month so far. I am assuming January isn’t going to be a big month as well, just due to holidays being over. Everybody gets their credit card bills as well as students being out of town,” Anderson said.

Not only does the lack of students affect business, but also weather is a large factor that contributes to sales.

“With the snow and cold, we get a lot less walk-in traffic,” Zarr said. “but we have more order traffic due to parties and stuff.”