For Some, Christmas Never Takes a Holiday : Sales: Even in summer, sleigh bells ring and the halls are decked with holly. Specialty merchants ring up profits year-round.

There are 12 days of Christmas, but 12 months of shopping for it.

On a recent summer morning, the sleighs outside the Christmas House here looked misplaced on a lush lawn. But inside there were plenty of customers, cheerily making their way among the nutcrackers and garlands.

“I come in here and I just think, ‘Oh, it’s time to start buying,’ ” Marcia Mulholland, 50, said over the strains of Christmas tunes.

Mulholland isn’t alone. Christmas enthusiasts spread enough cheer to keep hundreds of similar stores open year-round throughout the country, from Nome to New Orleans.

“There is no question in my mind that people are spending more on Christmas than they used to,” said Barry Vaill, who owns the 45,000-square-foot store in rural Rhode Island. “Christmas is in renaissance.”

His sales exceeded $1 million last year, but “first and foremost, I’m in the entertainment business--if they buy something, fine,” he said, pointing to 50 carefully trimmed trees.

Last spring, Vaill and 20 other stores formed the National Independent Christmas Shops, an association to share ideas, offer support and guard the Christmas image against cut-rate discounters that use the Christmas name to sell everything from furniture to flower pots.

Vaill, the association president, said most year-round Christmas store owners are drawn to the business by a love of the holiday. Still, he estimated about 25% are trying to capitalize on a lucrative niche.

But the Christmas business isn’t all merry and it takes a certain faith to survive.

“I don’t think you realize what the first quarter is like until you’ve been through it,” said association membership chairwoman Gayle Boutin, owner of the Christmas House of Stone Mountain, Ga. She said sales in January and February can drop to 10% of December levels.

Vaill helps keep more than coal in his summer stocking by selling decorations for every holiday: St. Patrick’s Day trees, Uncle Sam nutcrackers, Halloween garlands and Thanksgiving dolls.

“Everybody in every market does it differently,” said Vaill. But “they all claim to be doing well.”

“They’re all up 20% to 25% this year and this is not a good year (for retail sales), so tell me what that means?” he said.

He and Boutin agree an increased interest in collectables has helped stimulate the industry.