Joy of Christmas

Archive for January, 2007

The increased number of cases of debt seen during January is often not simply the result of an overstretched Christmas, according to a debt advice and services company.

Thomas Charles & Co states that January is “definitely” a month marked by a high number of enquiries about bankruptcies and IVAs, often due to the fact that consumers have overstretched themselves financially over the Christmas period.

Debt problems during January are also indicative of the fact that problems existed well before December, with people not wanting to “rock the boat” during Christmas and make full use of their credit cards, before their use is restricted through bankruptcy or an IVA, the company reports.

Commenting on what consumers are thinking before Christmas, James Falla, managing director at Thomas Charles, stated: “Actually okay, I’ll cling on by the skin of my teeth, I’ll get through Christmas and use that last drop of balance that I have got on my credit card and then I’ll sort this out after Christmas.”

He added that younger people – especially between the ages of 22 and 28 – are “definitely getting into more debt”.

Earlier this week, IFA Promotion’s unbiased.co.uk website reported that over a quarter of adults who began the year with a resolution have broken it, with 21 per cent of having made a financially-related resolution.

A TOT who is mad about mayonnaise received an exclusive Christmas present from the brand with which he has become obsessed.

Little Oliver Walker, aged three, loves the Hellmann’s logo so much that he even makes his mum stop in the supermarket so he can gaze at the jars.

Oliver, of The Spinney, Beaconsfield, amused mum, Nicola, who phoned Hellmann’s before Christmas to see if the company could do something special for his rare interest.

The company replied by saying that it would happily give Oliver his own T-shirt and also posted the chirpy toddler a teddy-bear wearing an identical T-shirt.

Mrs Walker, 35, said: “He is just over the moon about it.

“He will sit and look at mayonnaise in the fridge – he just loves mayonnaise and they really went out their way to get him a Christmas present.”

Debbon and David McConnell of McCook will start renovation of McCook’s historic Santa Claus Lane signs with the little angel they carried out of storage last week. The McConnells recently evaluated 50-some signs to determine the extent of repair and repainting needed, and discussed reinforcing bracing and legs and renewing reflective paint. Some signs are beyond repair, and will have to be replaced, Debbon said. Some of the existing signs are plywood, some are Masonite; the large flag is sheet metal. Funds from the estate of Norma Strunk will finance repairs, paint and supplies. The McConnells plan the signs’ renovation as a year-long family project with their sons, Evan, 14, and Colt, 12. “Looks like we’ll have to do a sign a week … ” David observed.

With the holiday season now winding down we often have a little time to reflect on how we celebrated the season. We may ask ourselves, as the bills begin to arrive, whether we spent too much money on items that have already been pushed aside. We may question whether we really needed to indulge quite so much in the huge quantities of food that seem to be around every corner as we loosen our belts just a bit. We may promise ourselves that next year we will not put so much pressure on ourselves to make the holidays “perfect,” thus creating more stress for ourselves and taking away from the true meaning of the season. Each year I tend to think to myself that next year I will simplify the season just a bit more than the year before and now I believe that next year I have a plan as to how to do it.

The evening before Christmas Eve our family happened to have a night free from obligations, which is a rare thing indeed. We thought about heading out for dinner and stopping to look at Christmas lights in the process. While we got ready I happened to mention to my husband that my friend Jeannie and her husband Mike had spent some time volunteering with their children during the previous two weeks for an organization called My Brother’s Keeper. My Brother’s Keeper is a volunteer Christian ministry. Their mission is “to Bring the Love and Hope of Jesus Christ to those we serve.” They provide gently used furniture to people in need throughout the year as well as household items, clothing and food. Upon delivering such items they always end the visit with the gift of a crucifix so that the person receiving the “gifts” knows that it is Jesus working through them that allows them to be able to provide such goods to people in need. What started out as a husband and wife on a mission to help people and bring the light of Jesus into the lives of others during Christmas back in 1991 has blossomed from a ministry that once assisted 14 families to one that assisted 1,720 families this year. With more than 2,000 volunteers donating their time, talent and/or treasures this year was the most successful year yet for the organization. Since my friend Jeannie had mentioned it to me and told me about what a beautiful experience it was to help out I decided to call during the week before Christmas to see if more help was needed. Like many of us I wanted to find a way to reach out to others during this time of year and to teach my children to do the same but unfortunately I could not get through on the telephone to see if help was needed. I was relaying this to my husband when he suggested that we drive over anyway to knock on the door. Being that it was in Easton, Mass. and it was already 6 p.m. I was hesitant but at his urging we decided to try.

Upon arriving at the very large warehouse My Brother’s Keeper functions out of my husband went out to knock on the door. He was greeted by an enthusiastic volunteer as well as a great deal of thanks. They had so much to do before Christmas Eve and just one day to do it. We were given the wish list of a family and throughout the warehouse that was filled with various new donated toys and clothing, we “shopped” for them. We then went to the wrapping stations and wrapped and labeled all of the gifts so that they could be delivered to the proper homes the next day. After shopping and wrapping for three hours we finished with a prayer with the other volunteers, led by the founder of the ministry, Jim Orcutt. We were then on our way. We never did go out to dinner that night (I don’t count the Burger King drive through) and our trip to look at the Christmas lights took a detour but it was certainly one of the best and most memorable evenings that we spent as family during the entire season. I hope to have many more like it in the future as well.

What struck me as I thought about how nice it was to volunteer as a family during the Christmas season was that the needs of those less fortunate than us do not end simply because the season is over. People are still hungry and need furniture and various other means of assistance throughout the year. This ministry along with many other organizations works tirelessly all year long to help those in need.

Lets all keep the sprit of Christmas alive all year long as we continue to keep this in mind.

The dirty Thanksgiving dishes were still sitting in the kitchen sink when Tim Leeming decided to hang up his Christmas lights, but partway through, a sudden wave of disgust swept over him.

“I was ashamed of myself. I said, ‘I’m taking these things down. Christmas and Thanksgiving are not the same holiday. We are not going to blend them together. We are going to have a Christmas season.’”

Leeming says he feels a not-so-subtle pressure from society to speed things up.

“Our whole culture is, ‘What’s next? What’s for sale? What can I buy? Throw out what I have. Let’s buy some new stuff.’ You feel that pressure to get things done, and we said, ‘No, we’re not doing it.’”

Leeming, 45, is a Cook County attorney and has lived in Oak Park with his wife, Pamela, and four children for 12 years. He takes a certain pride in being “countercultural.”

For example, when one of his close friends died last spring, Leeming didn’t want to take his three younger children to the gravesite after the funeral and subject them to the mourning experience. Instead, he chose to take them home to build a giant snowman in her honor with big deer antlers on its head as a way to work off some stress and do something positive in the face of grief.

Another way he bucks societal norms is throwing a winter solstice party every January.

The tradition started about 10 years ago as a way to celebrate the shortest day of the year. A few friends would come over to the Leeming home to play pick-up sticks, read poems and listen to music. Although the winter solstice falls in December, the Leemings usually hold their parties in January.

In 2007, the party blossomed into much more. Around 55 people attended the gathering. The Leemings printed elaborate invitations for guests. They play games, read poems, tell jokes.

Leeming sees the gathering as a chance to escape from the hectic pace of everyday life.

“Our solstice party is kind of like our idealized version of civilization: people gathered quietly, sharing talents, sharing time in a peaceful, attentive way, and if we could live in a perfect world like that, we’d be happy-if we could just do stuff we value: art, music, poetry, dance, stories, laughter, that kind of stuff. And we set aside one day a year to do that.

“It’s an effort to control and create our own reality, just for a short time, and to promote values that we don’t think are promoted in our normal American culture, like turning off the TV and just visiting.”

Leeming said some people at the parties don’t understand what he’s trying to accomplish.

“Some people think it’s really weird and bizarre,” he said. “The idea of people standing up and reciting poetry, they’ll never do it, they’ve never seen it done.”

One tradition at the party is to have a different person read a Robert Frost poem titled, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” each year. The first line of the poem asks, “Whose woods are these?” And in reference to the poem, the Leemings decided to create their own woods right outside their home.

Spontaneously, the Leemings spotted a couple of sad, lonely looking former Christmas trees discarded in the alley and the children started dragging the trees back to the house and leaning them up against the fence.

They started building momentum and getting into the idea, and the family dragged more trees back to prop against the fence. When they couldn’t find any in walking distance, they decided to hop in the car and hunt more down.

“Some people were looking at us very funny, like we were committing a crime,” Leeming said. “They were very suspiciously following us in cars, giving us looks like ‘What are those people doing?’”

Some of the trees still had price tags on them: $80, $90 $100. Others still had tinsel. Altogether the Leemings propped 13 trees against their fence. They call it their “pine forest.”

The family isn’t sure how long they want to keep the baker’s dozen up, but Leeming thinks he’d like to keep them through March to the end of winter.

“We’re going to drag them back to the houses we got them from and say we just borrowed them for a couple months,” Leeming joked. “I want to see what they look like in the snow, and the birds like them too.”

He thinks his miniature forest subtly says something.

“At its basic level, it’s a statement: let’s be creative, let’s be careful, let’s be thoughtful.”

Pamela Leeming says, “We hold our solstice party just to be more aware of nature and living things. This year, I think when he brought the trees in with the kids, we sat down and discussed what a short life [the trees] had and what a wonderful life they would’ve had if they stayed in the pine forest.”

Mr. Leeming wrote a poem about the experience based on the discussion. He titled it, “On a Dying Pine Tree, In the Oak Village.” The poem summarizes his feeling that killing a tree is a bad way to start Christmas.

“Our family has always had an artificial tree,” Leeming said. “We just thought it was a bad idea to kill something for Christmas. After the holiday, when you see all these dead trees lying around, you start thinking about it.”

Poetry isn’t the limit of this attorney’s talents. Leeming also paints, carves and made some of the stained glass windows in the family’s Euclid Avenue home. He studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois in Champaign Urbana after he finished law school.

“I do everything to stay busy,” Leeming said. “The artwork is a good balance to the legal work, which is very right-brained, sitting at a desk and working at a computer. If I won the lotto, this is what I’d be doing for a living.”

When Shonna Ilgenfritz was younger, it was easy to explain where she lived in Spring Garden Township.

“I live, you know, where the Christmas decorations are,” she’d say.

In 1970, Ilgenfritzes moved across the street from the elaborate light display local dentist Robert Pfaltzgraff had had set up on his Country Club Road lawn for maybe 20 years.

The next year, the Ilgenfritzes took over the display, which is made up of old-fashioned lights, a wooden sleigh with eight reindeer, an army of toys and a 6-foot-tall mechanical Frosty the Snowman.

But Frosty the Snowman is saying goodbye to Country Club Road for good.

Shonna, now a 49-year-old York city resident, helped her parents, Joyce and Morgan Ilgenfritz, and several of their grandchildren pack up the display outside their home on Saturday for the last time.

Morgan Ilgenfritz recently had his knee replaced, leaving him unable to put up the decorations on his own. Last year, C1 nine of his grandsons came from nearly two hours away to help. But he and his wife decided that maybe it was time to call it quits.

“We are getting older,” he said. Though they have had several offers to buy the display, the couple doesn’t want to sell.The lights belong to York County, they said.

“It’s a landmark,” Joyce Ilgenfritz, 70, said.

They hope to donate the display to Rocky Ridge County Park in memory of Pfaltzgraff.

York County Department of Parks and Recreation officials are considering whether they can give it the “tender loving care” it needs, said Jeri Jones, special events and program coordinator for the department.

“It’s certainly a very historical piece,” he said.

Pfaltzgraff, who died in 1975, built what they call the “children’s Christmas wonderland” from toys his patients would bring him. A rubber Popeye doll, Morgan Ilgenfritz’s favorite, rides a merry-go-round with toy animals, next to a Ferris wheel populated by old bubble bath bottles emptied by the dentist’s patients.

“This was built because he loved children,” but had none of his own, Morgan said.

The Ilgenfritzes took over when “Doc’s” heart began giving him trouble, they said. He told them to put it in their yard since he could see it better from there anyway.

Morgan Ilgenfritz, a 73-year-old retired electrician, was the only person Pfaltzgraff ever let beyond the lock and key that secured the elaborate system of pulleys, leather belts and motors that he crafted to run the display.

He’s taken over the same care that Pfaltzgraff gave the display, watching as his grandsons carefully wiped each piece down before packing it away in boxes Saturday.

The family said they’ll be sad to see the display go, to no longer have visitors drive slowly by their home in December and meander up to the decorations.

“I’ve really gotten to meet a lot of our neighbors through the decorations,” Joyce Ilgenfritz said.

One of their daughters asked if they could donate everything but Frosty, and give the snowman to her.

“Everybody would like to have Frosty,” Morgan Ilgenfritz said. But he wants the whole set to stay together.

In December, my wife and I were going to Sacramento to pickup our daughter from the airport and on the way we passed by Jackson, Sutter Creek, Amador City and Dry Town. It was dark and most of the local businesses had Christmas lights and decorations up. It really made me feel good to be living in this special mountain area this time of year. Small towns have a way of making the holidays very special.

On the way home that evening I also happened to notice the lack of lights and decorations on Wal-Mart and Kmart. The next day driving by Lowe’s I noticed the same thing. It’s pretty sad that the retailers who make the most money and do the most Christmas advertising do nothing to brighten up our community. But the much sadder thing is, it’s not just the Christmas lights.

I never see management or the owners from these “big boxes” helping at the charitable events, don’t see them at the service club meetings, don’t see them at the livestock auction, don’t see them donating their time and money for those in need. I do see the small business owners, you know the same ones with the Christmas lights. The fact is there are businesses and business owner’s who care about the community and those who care about the stockholders.

There is a huge amount of new retail space, including more big boxes, going into our county with very little population growth; I just hope that all the Christmas lights don’t soon disappear.

John Wiens

Jackson

A Christmas lights display featured on the CBS Early Show and right here on KELOLAND News is now lighting up the lives of three children.

Friday afternoon Joe Noe and his family, who live in Crooks, gave the Make-A-Wish Foundation an impressive donation. Even the Noe family was surprised by the size of the check.

Joe Noe and his family found out first hand what lights and music can do during the Christmas season. On Thanksgiving, they turned on their lights and put out a donation box. Their goal was raise five thousand dollars to make one child’s wish come true.

Noe says, “Realistically I really didn’t think we would make it…I thought maybe we can make one thousand or fifteen hundred and help one along.”

But Friday all of the hard work that went into the Crook’s light display paid off to the tune of more than 16-thousand dollars as Noe and his family presented a check to the South Dakota Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Noe says, “I just put on a light show and everybody else came out to see it and it’s not my money it’s their money so I look forward to see what happens with it.”

President and CEO of Make-A-Wish Mary Olinger says, “This was probably the biggest Christmas gift we’ve had in a long time.”

And just like the display, the timing couldn’t have been much better.

Olinger says, “Normally during the winter months we don’t have a big fundraising events at all and when joe came into see us we said sure we’ll do something not even knowing or anticipating that this would be as huge as it is.”

And even eleven months out.. Noe hopes next year’s gift will be even better.

Noe says, “I don’t know how you can start something like this and just stop. If anybody else was out shopping for Christmas lights after Christmas you probably saw me there too loading cases into the cart.”

Noe and the Make-A-Wish Foundation are sitting down Friday afternoon to decide what kinds of wishes the family would like to make come true. Whether it’s a trip to Disney World or a celebrity wish, there’s no doubt he made a lot of children smile over the holiday season..

Never mind what Gretchen Wilson sang in “Redneck Woman,” her breakthrough country hit from 2004: “And I keep my Christmas lights on, On my front porch all year long …”

For some people, the bug to undecorate might bite before the last yuletide song plays on the radio Christmas Day.

But as Blood, Sweat & Tears sang in 1969 to start “Spinning Wheel”: “What goes up must come down …”

So without snowstorms or icy weather as a deterrent, New Year’s Day often sounds the horn for homeowners, municipalities and retailers to take down, sort out, organize and store outdoor Christmas light displays for next season.

Consensus on what takes longer – setup or removal – was easy: the latter across the board.

The Martin family, on North Cedar Drive in Surfside Beach, powers up its displays, with extensive front- and back-yard illuminations, from Thanksgiving night through New Year’s Eve.

Georgie Martin said setup takes about 10 days, but disassembly only two. All the decorations, including a light fence lining the front yard, Santa and reindeer, and inflatables such as a carousel and Grinch, were taken down New Year’s Day and Tuesday.

A small crew she employs at Garden City Pavilion Arcade in Garden City Beach coordinates removal and transfer of all equipment into storage.

“Wherever we have space, that’s where we store it,” said Martin, who has never added up the family’s amount of lights.

At the Myrtle Beach-area Tanger Outlet complexes, General Manager Robert Leisen said with a laugh Tuesday, “We’re undecorated at both centers.”

By Leisen’s count between both sites, a maintenance crew spends about 50 man-hours a year on decorations such as 75 banners, 60 giant red bows, and more than 2,000 feet of garland for light poles.

“Taking down is always easier than putting it up,” Leisen said. “Stuff comes off faster. Putting it up, we need a lot more precision.”

The process to box up and move the goods into storage rooms, he said, entails, working “from the top down,” beginning with the bows and garland coming off the poles and scheduling around peak customer traffic flow.

The garland and bows generally last a couple of seasons, depending on weather, and the 90,000 clear lights lining the eaves at the complex on U.S. 501 remain up, but not lit, year round. He estimated about 10 percent to 20 percent of the bulbs are replaced in time for Thanksgiving each year, and crews starting checking them in August “string by string.”

“We love the holiday season,” Leisen said. “But it is always a relief to get into January.”

The city of Myrtle Beach’s traffic division spent Tuesday through Thursday taking down its decorations, mainly lighted wreaths and tall light sculptures, and filling up its 53-foot-long tractor-trailer.

A team of five employees carry out this mission, said Randy Hardy, the city’s traffic signal technician.

They start their shifts at 4 a.m., for their safety and for motorists’, without blocking roads, and to dodge the business-day road volume, according to Hardy.

In the trailer, later parked on a city lot, brackets along the inside walls allow for winding and storage of lights to minimize breakage.

On Ash Street, on the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, Pat and Jesse James were continuing removal Wednesday of their end-to-end house display and helping their next-door neighbor, Lucille Prince, take down her icicle lights.

The James’ go by rote, packing and storing each in turn: light sculptures first, then the lights on the bushes and tree, their globes and finally the icicles dangling from the eaves.

Looking ahead to next year, Pat said, “We never really think about what we are going to do different until the first of December when we begin to look and check all we have. If I should see something that might go with what I already have, I will buy that to put out also.”

Martin said after summer, and the bulk of hurricane season, passes, thoughts return to a makeshift winter wonderland around her family’s house.

“People call me and thank me for doing this,” she said. “I enjoy making other people happy.”

She admitted, “It’s exciting to put it up, but it’s a big letdown when you take it down.”

Sometimes, Mother Nature adds her own sparkle to the season for free.

Leisen said on Thanksgiving week and in early December, at Tanger Outlets on U.S. 501, ice was seen hanging off the fountains, “for a very wintry effect.”

“That’s the only decoration that we didn’t have to pay for,” he said

Christmas decorations are staying up until Easter at one house in Brighton after a ding-dong over fairy lights.

The owner defied the rule to switch off lights by the 12th night of Christmas last weekend after receiving hate mail criticising his taste.

An unsigned Christmas card was sent to businessman Lawrence Whitaker, of Withdean Crescent.

It read: “Congratulations, you have won a prize for erecting the most tawdry and tasteless Christmas lights.

“It really makes the street look like a cheap nightclub strip.”

Neighbours have rallied round and are urging Mr Whitaker to spurn the “old Scrooge” and keep the lights on.

Mr Whitaker, a 55-year-old company director, and his wife put coloured lights in bushes and erected a 6ft artificial palm tree with yellow and green lights outside their detached home.

He said: “I don’t know if it’s the tree that has upset this person but plenty of people have said how much they like it.

“One asked long before Christmas when it was going up because their grandchild saw it last year and liked it so much.

“Neighbours have suggested scorning the critic by keeping the lights on until Palm Sunday, just before Easter.

“I agree that Christmas lights are a matter of taste but I hardly think our lights have turned the street into something out of Las Vegas.”

Mr Whitaker has since taken the lights out of the bushes with the help of his next door neighbours but is leaving the palm tree.

He said: “We got it in Florida a couple of years ago and it has gone up for the past two years.

“When we got the card we did not think too much of it but it is funny and our neighbours thought it was nonsense.”

Neighbour Chrissie Spicer, who lives opposite the Whitakers, said she had no idea who might have sent the card as all the neighbours were friendly.

She said: “Most of the neighbours really enjoy the lights and they are brilliant. We think it is sad that someone had to send an anonymous card criticising what, they say, are tacky decorations.

If they felt that strongly they should have knocked on the door. It is very petty.

“Talking to all the other neighbours, the majority of them enjoy the lights.

“There are lots of other houses in Brighton with far more decorations, which people might perhaps say are tackier.

“At the end of the day it’s a couple of weeks over Christmas and it’s nice to brighten the street up.”

A giant straw goat that has been the target of a violent Christmas tradition for four decades survived the holiday season unharmed, Swedish officials said Tuesday.

For once, they said, vandals failed to burn it down.

The city of Gavle dismantled the 13-meter (43-foot) -high Christmas monument Tuesday, marking a rare victory against vandals who have made it a sport to destroy the goat in imaginative ways before Christmas every year.

It is only the 12th time in the goat’s 40-year history that it had survived unscathed, said Anna Ostman, a spokeswoman for the city’s goat committee. Since it was first erected on Dec. 3 1966, the goat has been burned down 22 times, smashed several times, run over by a car and had its legs cut off.

This year’s goat was attacked by would-be arsonists in mid-December, but survived thanks to a new flame-resistant chemical coating.

“If the Gavle goat hadn’t been impregnated with flame-resistant chemicals, we would have been left with a black skeleton,” Ostman said.

The straw goat would be kept in a secret location until next Christmas, officials said.

Last year’s goat was burned down by vandals dressed as Santa Claus and the Gingerbread Man. They were never caught.