I feel like this might alienate people. So for us I think we do just one for xmas.

What do you think?

It depends on the niche, I don't change theme of my site because of xmas

Yes . It depends on your niche. You can also have a genric holiday theme since a lot of people celebrate other holidays other than Xmas.

I think its a great idea to add holiday themes. It makes you a part of your visitors mood of celebration, reflects that you share something common among your visitors.

Yep also think its a good idea but why limit it with only xmas? How about valentines day or easter etc...

To my mind it is rather good than bad. You enter the site in the eves of holidays and re3ceive holiday mood. I speak as a person who visits sites, but surely, if my favourite site will not add those topics I will not be upset about it, as well as I will not alienate if they will. Though much depends on the quality of the realization and artistic view of the designer.

I don't see anything wrong with with using holiday themes, but we don't. We do use holiday promotions, though.

We use holiday promotions but don't change the website's theme to match the holiday, though.

We always have a holiday promotion but this year we did not do a holiday theme.

Well it certainly looks professional. But if you can't design websites yourself, outsourcing isn't going to be cheap. Most just come up with a special promotion.

While looking at homepages of some big hosting companies and development firms, you may find some Flash animations which depict policies and business activity ranges of them as well as concepts which are relevant to calendar events.

You do not have to renovate your website completely or change the templates based on calendar occasions but dedicating some parts, like the top pixels of your homepage, to the holiday seasons can be cool.

Basically i would just add new specials and banners to give the holiday feeling to generate more sales.

I leave it how it is, usually unless it's a niche.

I only do it if I have a special offer that goes with the holiday, otherwise IMO I think it's a waste of time and money (for the design)

It's a waste of resources and time, not worth it.