Locals recount some special holidays

The Christmas holiday season - Highlands County residents describe it as magic and amazing and a time for peace and joy, family gatherings, traditions and celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Adults also described the challenges of shopping for gifts and making their budget cover everybody on their Christmas list.

As the adults worry about the shopping and if they will be going to her parents or his parents for Christmas dinner, the kids have it made with two weeks off from school and a visit from Santa Claus.

Of course, Christmas is also about memories of Christmas past.

Sharon Skeeles remembers receiving a Christmas gift in her teen years that turned out to be a lesson in irony or cause and effect.

"Many people, myself included, occasionally think some minor action taken can change events that affect multitudes:" she said. "For example: if I wear purple during a Minnesota Vikings game, the Vikings will lose or because I bought a generator after the 2004 hurricanes, this caused peninsular Florida to escape hurricanes ever since."

As a 15-year-old in 1980 living in southeastern Minnesota, her parents bought her the cross county skis and outfit she had wanted for years.

Snow usually blankets the area from November through March, Skeeles noted.

"I longingly stared out our large picture window hoping for the necessary inches of snow so that I could use my new skis," she said. "No snow that season."

Skeeles stared out the window the next Christmas. Not enough snow that season either and the same with Christmas 1982.

"It wasn't until early 1983 that I could use the skis, she exclaimed, and nobody even thanked me for keeping the snow away for 2 and 1/2 years.

"Nor has anybody thanked me for warding off the hurricanes for five years. But at least I can wear purple now and the Vikings can win in spite of me."

Michigan memories

Carl Michael of Sebring has a Christmas memory from way back when in Michigan.

Unlike Skeeles, who had to wait 2 and 1/2 years to use her Christmas present, Carl put one of his presents to good use (though not its intended use) right away.

"When I was a little kid back on the farm I can remember getting a ball bat and a BB gun for Christmas one year, and low and behold way across the field their was a possum running across the field," he said.

Michael quickly slipped his boots on, took off running and caught up with the pesky possum and clobbered him with his new bat.

For Michael's wife, Barbara, childhood holiday memories in Wisconsin meant family gatherings with aunts and uncles and cousins.

This Christmas Eve the Michaels plan to go caroling in Sebring Village off Schumacher Road where they live.

"You've got to come in and look at all the lights," Carl said. "Rudolph is pulling a golf cart around out there."

"It's unreal how these people have decorated," Barbara added. "I don't know how they get all that stuff done. It's amazing."

Carl knows how it's done and its not little elves doing the lighting and decorating handiwork.

"It's 80-year-old people going up a ladder decorating their house," he said.

And though in the Heartland we may forever dream of a white Christmas or a least enjoy Bing Crosby's classic rendition of "White Christmas," for some a sunny and not so cold forecast is the best part of the holidays in Florida.

"I don't have to shovel snow or be afraid to fall on the ice," Barbara said.

She already received a gift from her husband - a bracelet with silver charms.

Younger Christmas wishes

A quick check with some elementary students revealed that Santa had better make a stop soon at an electronics or computer store.

After singing Christmas carols in the Lakeshore Mall food court recently with her Memorial Elementary classmates, 10-year-old Sydney Ebey of Sebring said the best part of the holidays is spending time with her family and getting presents.

She's hoping to find a laptop computer under the Christmas tree.

Yarley Morales, 10, also wants a laptop computer.

What do you do with a laptop?

"Usually I get bored at my house so maybe I could have something to do on the Internet and maybe I could do a little homework on there," she said with a giggle.

Tammy Hutchins, 10, wants a Nintendo DSi game console.

"You can make your own pictures out of it and trace things and make them the way you want," she said.

The best part of the holiday season is spending time with her family and kids, said Stacy Black. Shopping for four kids is the toughest part of the season and since she hasn't finished her shopping, they still have to be good.

No matter what she does, her children are up at 4 in the morning Christmas day to open their gifts, she said.

Feliz Navidad

With his 10-year-old niece, Jocelyn Torres, interpreting, Kar Chacon said the best part of Feliz Navidad is the happiness.

Shopping for gifts for the whole family is toughest part of the holiday, he noted.

Chacon knew a few English words to describe what he likes to eat during the holidays "rice and beans; no chicken; beef."

Torres said she wanted a Nintendo DSi for Christmas, which prompted a hearty laugh from her uncle.

Torres said she is looking forward to gathering with her family and celebrating the day that Jesus was born.

Holiday eggnog

At the mall with her students, Memorial Elementary Principal Ruby Handley said she follows her mother's tradition of making homemade eggnog.

"My mom used to make really good eggnog," she said. "But, not very many children in my family like eggnog so I don't make it for them."

Handley said "the love," is the best thing about the holiday season.

She added it's also about "the peace and the joy and just the whole magic of the season for everybody, for the kids and the grownups and just the giving and the whole magic."

Have a magical, amazing, memorable, joyous and merry Christmas.