Longboat Key Gifts and Gaffes

That turkey wasn’t for me?

“When I was still dating my future wife in Baltimore, my future mother-in-law got the Thanksgiving turkey out of the oven and left

it on the kitchen table to cool while we socialized in the basement. When we came up to eat, all that was left on the kitchen floor was the carcass of the turkey, while my in-laws’ 100-pound German Shepherd sat on the floor licking his lips.”

— Reg Ware

Cookie crash

“We had a dish we put cookies on for Santa. We broke it one year and told our son, who was 7, that Santa broke it. I still have that

plate.” 

— Janice Cook

Secret ingredient

“Four years ago, I was making two apple pies. The first one everybody in the family said was delicious. The second pie I made when I was in a hurry. Instead of sugar, I put salt into the pie. This year, I made an apple pie for the first time since then. It was good with no salt.”

— Sue Reese

Christmas connection

“My priest in Michigan, Father Tom Wantland, instilled in me the importance of community and giving back. He was a dear friend of mine, and we lost touch after I moved away. A few years ago, we reconnected when Father Wantland found a landline number for me, and I just happened to pick up the phone. I hardly ever used that phone and was close to disconnecting it. It was a miracle I was ever there to pick up the phone. I told him about the Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key and the work we do out here for kids. I made him promise he would be my guest at last year’s Lawn Party, and he agreed to come. It was a wonderful holiday season to reconnect with someone whose philosophy of community service means so much to me.”

— Michael Renick

Nobody wants to be alone on Christmas

“Believe it or not, my fondest memories are from the country I had to run away from. Before Fidel Castro overthrew the Cuban government, I remember huge Christmas Eve dinners with friends, neighbors and family in Cuba. Everyone would bring a dish and

get together for huge block party-type Christmas Eve dinners. One of my saddest Christmases was when the International Monetary Fund sent me on an emergency assignment in Liberia with just seven days notice right before Christmas. I left Dec. 20 and spent Christmas by myself. I was welcomed with open arms at the American Embassy in Liberia for Christmas dinner, but you still feel alone when you can’t spend the holidays with your loved ones.”

— Armando Linde

A Christmas miracle ... and a mishap

“On Dec. 22, 1977, my daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Duncan, came into the world. Because she spent her first few days in the hospital suffering from some minor jaundice, she had to stay under the blue light.

As a result, Sarah, our first child, came home on Christmas Day. My wife had a little wooden bassinet-type crib, and on Christmas Day, we placed her in that little crib under her first Christmas tree. For Debbie and I, it was one of the greatest moments in our lives and certainly our fondest Christmas memory.

“Fast forward 10 years, two more children and a dog, we had our worst Christmas memory. I had just finished putting the tree up, with the help of my two sons, Ian and Adam, while Debbie and Sarah were in the kitchen preparing our Christmas Eve feast. With a glass of wine in hand and feeling very proud of my engineering feat (putting up the tree), we were all in the kitchen nibbling away on what was going to be a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner. 

Suddenly we heard a crash from our living room. The engineer who put up our tree forgot to screw in the anchors on the bottom of the stand, and of course, the tree decided to stop balancing. With that, our golden retriever, Zack, leaped to his feet, ran over to the Christmas presents and decided to relieve himself of his fear, all over the presents. The engineer then changed his business model to ‘waste removal expert.’”

— Mayor Jack Duncan

Clean eating

“One year, I put the oven on clean instead of cooking the turkey.” 

— Jackie Salvino

If the shoe fits...

“One year, I gave my daughter a pair of shoes. That daughter gave my other daughter the same pair of shoes, and then she gave me those shoes. All three of us got the same shoes without knowing it! We called it the ‘Year of the Shoes.’” 

— Cindy Kuehnel

That’s a wrap

“We went out to dinner, and the dog got under the tree and moved around all our packages. We came home, and there was wrapping paper all over. I had to rewrap all the gifts.” 

— Rose Tomason

Spreading out the season

“Our Christmas decorations start going up right after Halloween. We have seven trees, so we have to start early. We don’t have any lights on at night or outside until after Thanksgiving.” 

— Barbara Kerwin

Ready to serve

“One year we cooked a turkey and forgot to take the plastic bag of giblets out. When it was close to being done, the bag started to extrude from the bird. In a panic, Chris (wife) called her mom and asked what to do. ‘Remove it and serve,’ she said. The turkey was a hit!” 

— Rusty Chinnis

Family time

“Our best holidays were from 1975 to 1993, when our family gathered at the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort to share the good life we had in that two-week stretch on the beach, which was repeated every year. We left our worries elsewhere and just focused on

being a family. The essence of that memory is captured in a picture of our then young grandson, Brett, lighting the candles at Hanukkah.”

— Dave and Maggie Brenner

Wonder Woman

“I remember getting my robin’s egg-blue 26-inch Schwinn bicycle from Santa. When I came down the stairs on Christmas morning and saw this beautiful sight sitting next to our big Christmas tree, my eyes bugged out of my face. I was so excited. I opened the front door on a cold winter’s day, took my new “bluebird” by the handlebars, gingerly walked her down the six front steps to the sidewalk, jumped on the bike and gleefully rode all over the neighborhood, in a zone of exhilaration and great appreciation of speed. Boy oh boy, I was breaking all speed limits, I said to myself. 

Meanwhile, back at my house, my brother, Bob, was so engrossed in his new chemistry set that he never missed me as I took off out the door, at least that’s what he said when my dad and mom came down the stairs wondering why the front door was wide open and where I was. 

After my parents received several calls from neighbors reporting me going 100 miles an hour through the neighborhood in a pink nightgown (and my parents standing outside in bed clothing, freezing to death), I finally pulled up to the front steps in a classy screeching stop. I felt like Wonder Woman and Speed Racer. I haven’t felt that good ever since.” 

— Joan Partridge

The gift of keeping on with giving

“I hail from a family of retailers, so I encountered the holiday season each year in a similar fashion: My parents worked late at the store every night until Christmas. They closed at 9 p.m. Often, my cousins and I played in the basement of the store that held, magically, every sort of toy a child could want back in those days. One year, I saw a dollhouse that I fell in love with and asked my parents if I could have it.

‘Only if we don’t sell them all,’ my mother told me, ‘And remember, you are in that basement to entertain the younger children so that their parents can buy them what they want.’

So my brother and my two cousins did as we were told, but my eyes wandered to that dollhouse, and deep inside of me, I wished for it, hoping someone would hear me.

On Christmas Eve, as soon as I had finished dinner, I walked over to the store with my cousins and immediately ran down to the basement to see my dollhouse. But it was gone. I didn’t dare cry and have the others make fun of me, but I was absolutely beyond misery.

Still, I stayed on duty, playing with the Lionel trains instead, casting all thoughts of the dollhouse out of my heard. Last-minute shoppers sent their children down to us, though they were few in number.

The whole family walked home together. We watched some TV, and then I went up to bed. I cried very quietly there, so that my parents wouldn’t hear me.

On Christmas morning, with the store closed and the long season finally ended, my mother liked to make us a big, delicious breakfast, which included pancakes. I helped her wash the dishes and was about to go out to play when my mother asked me to come into the living room. I thought it odd but said nothing.

‘Alan,’ my mother said to my brother. ‘There’s something stuck behind the chair with the clawed feet. Could you get it out for me?’

My brother, who was in on it all, did so with great deliberation and seriousness. At last, I saw it was a big box, and in it, the dollhouse I had wanted so much. My parents had hidden it in the back of the store basement that Christmas Eve. No one was going to have that dollhouse but me.

I played with it for many years. When I grew up, I was teaching a first grade class, which had a very poor little girl in it. I pretended that I had pulled her name out of a hat, and what did she win? Why, the dollhouse, of course. My mother thought that I should have saved it in case I had a daughter of my own. But maybe I knew there would only be boys for me. I hope it made that little girl as happy as it made me way back when, when Christmas was beautiful, and living in a small town was a wonderful idea.” 

— Judy Goldstein

Home for the holidays

“I was a U.S. Army Europe company commander in November 1967 with eight to nine months left to go on a tour in Germany before I was rotated back to the United States. My wife, two kids and I were lamenting the fact we would be missing the holidays with friends and family when all of a sudden, I got a call from Army personnel in Heidelberg telling me they had a slot to fill at a

Navy post-graduate school in Monterey, Calif., and I got the slot. They wanted me to drop my command immediately and head back to the States. We packed up our belongings and got back to the States on Thanksgiving morning in time for Thanksgiving dinner with my wife’s family. It was totally unexpected, and we were so thankful.”

— Sean McGrath

Hobbling down memory lane

“One year, my 2-year-old nephew somehow brought the whole Christmas tree down, breaking the leg off of a horse under the tree that came as a set of horses. We managed to attach a prosthetic leg to the horse, and the horse is still with us today, along with the memory of the tree coming down.”

— Dr. James Whitman

Gone to the dogs

“My parents were very generous and decided to take my whole family on my honeymoon to Lake Tahoe around Christmas time 1980. It was also my parents’ 50th anniversary. We were snowbound, and we had this huge cake that we put in the garage. Next thing we know, we go into the garage, and our dog had eaten the cake.” 

— Bob Dreyfus

Let it slide

“I always marinate my turkey, and halfway through the cooking, we have to turn it over. One year, I turned it over, and it slid onto the floor. We had to wash it off, take the skin off and put it back to cook.” 

— Bunny Skirboll

The tipping point

“Our third child was born Dec. 10. I was home from the hospital and making an attempt for my other two children. I was hosting a family turkey dinner for the grandparents on Christmas Eve. Everybody helped trim the tree (the other children were 4 and 6, so that in itself was a ‘creative’ experience). The turkey was in the oven, the tree was trimmed, and the grandparents were arriving. There was a football game on TV, and a neighbor had arrived to watch the game with my husband, Paul.

As a Christmas present, Gramps brought three fish bowls, each containing a goldfish, a tiny fish for the new baby and larger fish for the other two children. He placed them on the carpet near the tree, and in the midst of the holiday spirit, it took only minutes to witness the fish bowls tipped over, fish flopping on the carpet and the tree being knocked down. The bowls had red ribbon around them, and as they got wet, the red dye spread all over the light blue carpet.

Seeing a near disaster had just occurred, the football game was forgotten, and the neighbor left quickly. The rest of us managed to save the fish and redecorate the tree and pull it all together to enjoy a happy Christmas.” 

— Judy Achre

At least he didn’t shoot his eye out

“When I was 9 years old, all I wanted for Christmas was a Golden Eagle Daisy BB gun. My mother resisted, but I eventually wore her down. She agreed but warned me if I shot anybody with it, she would bust it up in the street and destroy it. I got my BB gun at

7:30 a.m. Christmas morning and shot some kid in the street soon after going through my only box of BBs. By 8:30 a.m., my mother was in the street stomping on it while I watched her annihilate my new gun for the whole neighborhood to see.”

— Richard Crawford

Taste test

“When my Grandmother Rose was visiting us, (she) fixed my Rice Krispies for breakfast. I kept telling her they tasted funny, and the more I said it, the more irritated she became. It turned out she had used eggnog instead of milk.”

— Vice Mayor Terry Gans

Santa magic

“Every Christmas Eve, my parents would put up an enormous (at least it seemed so to me) evergreen tree in our family room. Once my brother and I had gone to bed, my mother would begin to meticulously decorate the tree, while my father would get out all of our toys and gifts and remove every one from its commercial packaging.

Like most children, my sibling and I awoke shortly before dawn on Christmas morning, anxious to see what Santa had brought. My parents were pretty indulgent about the early wake-up call, providing we did not venture downstairs until my father had gone down first to make sure that Santa was not still there delivering presents.

Once the all-clear was given, my brother and I would scramble downstairs, always stopping at the entryway to the family room awed by what we saw. The big tree was now festooned with silken strands of tinsel and delicate glass balls, shimmering in the glow of hundreds of colored lights the size of gumdrops. 

Tumbling out from beneath the tree were our toys, stuffed animals, games and dolls looking as if they had just come from the workshop at the North Pole and delivered only hours before by Santa himself.” 

— Katie Cornell

Surprise reunion

“We lived in the Boston suburbs. As Christmas approached, my wife learned about an older lady who had no relatives nearby, so she invited her to come and share Christmas with us. 

Our son was attending a college about a four-hour drive away. Just before leaving for home, he heard that one girl student had no place to go and would have to spend the holiday alone on the campus. Her family had moved to England recently, and due to an unfortunate family breakup, neither time nor, perhaps, funds could be arranged for her to join them for the holidays. Of course, we told him to bring her to our house. 

A rush to the store for some appropriate presents and all was set for a jolly Christmas. Well after dark on Christmas Eve, a telephone call came for the young lady. It was from her brother who was in the Navy, and she had not seen him for some time. His ship had just docked in Boston, and he had called the school to get in touch with her. Since the stores were closed by that time, some of us scrambled into the attic and basement for something to wrap for one more guy, and some of us rushed to the Navy base to pick up the brother. 

The reunion was joyous. So we had a wonderful Christmas, which we managed to share with three strangers. It felt like that was what Christmas is really all about.” 

— Chuck Fuller

Holiday horror

“I had a holiday from hell in December of 2012. On Christmas Eve, my family’s flight was delayed, the lasagna was burned, and the

downstairs toilet overflowed. On Christmas Day, the car had a dead battery, the pool filter malfunctioned, and the plumber was unavailable to fix the bathroom. When guests arrived for a big party the next day, we still had no bathroom downstairs, and there was a ripped out toilet out on the back lawn. Not pretty! But we had fun anyway.” 

— Kip O’Neill

Holiday leftovers

“On our first Christmas together and in our newly built home, Jim and I hosted Christmas Eve overnight and Christmas dinner for our combined five children, their significant others and significant others’ extended families. It was quite a big to-do, and finally, after the children, all grown, had cleaned up the kitchen, we tried not to act like we were rushing them out. We leisurely bid them all goodbye and then quickly hurried off to our new vacation home on Longboat Key.

We returned days later, and a friend stopped by to see our new home. I was proudly showing my beautiful kitchen with its practical wall oven and the larger, used-only-at-holidays, lower oven on the professional range. To my shock, as I opened the oven door to

display the huge oven, there was the smelly carcass of the Christmas turkey in the well-insulated oven where one of the ‘cleaners of the Christmas dinner’ had placed it. After Jim donned appropriate hazmat gear, he discarded the pan, utensils, carcass and anything else nearby. We then used the self-cleaning function on the range with an extended session, burning any remnants of the whiff away promptly. 

We never knew who put the turkey carcass in the oven during the cleanup process, but we still laugh about the turkey story and always double check the oven after cleaning, just to be sure we aren’t surprised again.”

— Commissioner Lynn Larson