Traverse City Record-Eagle

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December 5, 2009

Figures recall holiday memories

Prominent local figures recall their favorites

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS

mdrahos@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY -- For some, Christmas means midnight church services, caroling and "The Nutcracker" ballet. For others, it's baking gingerbread, hanging stockings, getting the tree. We asked several prominent locals about their favorite Christmas memories and are printing their responses in a two-part series beginning today. Look for more memories on the Dec. 20 Northern Living page.

Doug Stanton

New York Times best-selling author, co-founder of the Traverse City Film Festival

My earliest Christmas memories are of driving to Reed City through heavy snow on Christmas Day to see extended family there.

Every year the ritual was repeated and nothing ever seemed different each December -- it was as if the days in between had passed, at the very moment we walked into the doors of my grandparents' and aunts' and uncles' houses, in an instant.

I grew older as they grew older and even now on Christmas morning I still think I am headed to my grandmother's house on 411 E. Todd in Reed City to sit in the dining room with the ancient furniture and the smell of the fuel oil coming up from the basement and all us -- some 30 cousins and aunts and uncles -- sitting around the large, claw-footed dining room table, whose blank face has been polished to a glow with a hundred years of elbows and fallen sleepy heads.

I would go into the side bedroom with its high plaster ceiling and sit. I could smell the old perfumes in their bottles on grandma's dresser, the mound of winter coats piled on the bed, still cold from the outdoors, snow melting on some of the warm collars. My father had been born in this bed.

Out in the living room Grandma had an aluminum Christmas tree that was lit by a lighted wheel whose varicolored face spun slowly and silently, set nearby on the floor. Wherever I went, wherever I would go, I would always be here, and in some ways, end up here, in this room, saying, "This is where I am from."

One night when I was 5 or 6 perhaps the most magical event of my young life occurred, when my uncle burst in through the front door, saying, "Ho, Ho, Ho!" I saw at first only his red pant legs and the black boots, and then the belly, and what I remember now is the deep red of his coat, a shade I have seen since in my life, the color of a heart unmoored from its anchor and pit, vulnerable, open.

I followed my uncle, whom we called Uncle Kippie, through the house as he hurried quickly. I sensed that this man in the heavy coat was my uncle, but I didn't want to believe it. The rest of the family looked up from their deck of cards to watch him pass through the kitchen.

What I remember is their laughter, and the way the windows of the back porch ran with moisture in that lighted, warm house. I could smell the African violets sitting on their shelves. Through the blurred panes I could see the red and yellow lights strung outside. Outside, snow fell in enormous flakes.

It seemed I was the only one who had followed Kippie to the door, and I can feel it now, the rattling brass knob, as I stood there closing the door after him, watching him disappear down the back steps, not wanting to believe it was him. So I didn't.

I never told Kippie how much that gesture of his meant to me during my youthful, imaginative life. I saw him again this Thanksgiving. He is old now and living in the Grand Traverse Pavilions with his wife, Aunt Kathleen. And as I watched him sit in his chair this Thanksgiving, I thought of him lacing up his boots that night so many years ago, and pulling on the red coat, and the beard with its uncomfortable elastic strap, and I thought again how ordinary yet strange it is, how simple and quiet it can be, to create magic.

I couldn't even tell him now about how I still felt about that night. It was too private, still too real, and the beginning of the end of believing in magic, and the beginning of the journey to find it again, and again, and again.

Chris Bzdok

Traverse City mayor, principal with the law firm Olson, Bzdok and Howard

My dad's family emigrated from Poland in the early 19-teens ... and moved to the Detroit/Hamtramck area. As long as they've been here they've been doing Wigalia, which involves typical Polish traditions. You wait for the first star, you eat the staple crops of Poland -- for our family barley, buckwheat, cabbage, lima beans, potatoes -- and then you sing the Polish Christmas carols, which are called koledy. It's a delight for the palate and traditionally a meatless meal.

We've been doing this as long as we've been in the country. My grandmother inherited it from my great-grandmother and has been doing it until last year, when she was 91; there was a period when she alternated preparations with her sister, Veronica. This year my brother, who runs freighters in Sault Ste. Marie, and I will be doing it for the first time. We'll be the third duo to do this since 1910, 1911. He'll be the cook, I'll just be helping.

It's also traditional that when you bring a significant other, you're engaged or about to be. When my dad brought my mother in the 1960s, that was the first time there were plates. Traditionally there are bowls in the middle of the table and spoons. My dad didn't want to scare my mother so he insisted on plates.

I fully expect that my brother and I will scare everybody by telling them we're going back to the old school. That's not what were doing, but that's what we're going to tell everyone.

Marc Schollett

TV 7&4 News anchor

When I was 5, our family was living in England (we moved a lot). As a family we were trying to learn and incorporate English traditions into our holiday festivities. According to my older and wiser sisters, one of those time-honored British traditions was that English parents let their children open one of the more prized presents on Christmas Eve. Who were my parents to argue with English tradition?

They gave in, but were insistent that we were to open only one present, whether we liked the gift or not. The kids agreed, figuring it was a can't-miss moment. We figured that the present we opened on Christmas Eve would set the tone for the rest of the presents that year. It would be the "best of the best," and everything that was saved for Christmas morning would pale in comparison.

That night our parents handpicked the presents for each of us to open, the ones that were sure to be the hit. Being the youngest, I opened first. To my delight, my dreams came true when I discovered a fabulous red Tonka fire truck with removable ladders and hoses. I still have it today. I could sleep well that night knowing that Mom and Dad were on the right track for all the presents that would come the next day.

Next came my 7-year-old sister's gift -- and that's when things took a turn. Apparently Mom and Dad got confused with box shapes and had to guess which one held the toy that topped her wish list. They guessed poorly: the one gift that British tradition and my parents selected for her to open turned out to be ... an itchy turtleneck. She didn't sleep as well that night.

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