- December 23, 2025
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While Christmas certainly isn't about each of us, many people do like to add a personal stamp to our holiday decorations and presentations. Some of those develop into family traditions over the years
Here is a look at some of the personal stamps on the holiday season that we enjoy in East County.
Myakka City’s Diane Bartoszek has displayed the same nativity scene for 27 years.
Her mother-in-law Connie Bartoszek used to make ceramics as a hobby. She sculpted and painted each piece of the nativity by hand.
Rich and Diane Bartoszek had only been married for four years when she gave the nativity set to them. Since then, the couple raised two children, Nick and Matthew, and traveled to all 50 states together.
As children, Nick and Matthew Bartoszek took turns every other year as to who would be able to set the Baby Jesus figurine in the manger on Christmas Eve.
“(The nativity) is always the first decoration I put out,” Diane Bartoszek said. “And although most of my other decorations are taken down by New Year’s Day, this stays up until Little Christmas on Jan. 6, which is the commemoration of when the Three Wise Men visited Baby Jesus.”
River Club’s Guy Vilt calls himself a “Lego junkie.” He started building when his now 31-year-old daughter Taylor Vilt was younger.
“It’s still our common bond,” Vilt said. “I can always find something to buy her — a Lego set.”
Storage is the only issue when it comes to Lego, but Taylor Vilt’s home in Illinois has a basement to store all the builds.
Without a basement, Vilt gets tighter on storage after every Black Friday when Lego goes on sale. He started building a winter village 10 years ago and has added to it every year since.
“It’s a fun project that I love working on,” Vilt said.
The village lights up and features a train, a ski slope and Santa and his reindeers flying overhead.
East County’s Selena Cunningham goes big for Christmas. She’s pictured here in front of her “coral reef tree” that she sets up each year because it pairs well with the furniture — a blue couch and an armchair that features starfish on the fabric.
But that’s far from all she puts out for Christmas. Cunningham is a collector. She has collections of nutcrackers, snowmen, red trees, glass trees and a winter village.
Cunningham’s 24-year-old son Bain Cunningham has autism and cerebral palsy. She started decorating for him when he was little, and they still bake a cake every Christmas Eve for Jesus.
“He can’t go out and do a lot of stuff,” she said. “But he loves lights, and he loves Christmas. This is the one joy that my son with his disabilities gets.”
Krista Brock, owner of Oh What Fun Party Co., creates and builds elaborate photo ops for clients like Lakewood Ranch, Benderson Development and Manatee County, so it’s not surprising that she comes up with creative ideas for her Lakewood Ranch home, too.
“I have a travel tree,” Brock said. “I make ornaments of all the places I’ve traveled.”
She uses maps and fills glass ornaments with driftwood and sand. Each ornament is a memory.
The Christmas craze for Ron Goldstein began with a single nutcracker.
When he was 5 years old, his mother — Bronia Goldstein — gifted him a Yankees-themed nutcracker. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and was enamored with the black-and-white pinstripes.
Together, they sought out more as the years went on. They "combed the earth" and even had some custom-made. His collection kept on growing after her 1980 passing.
"It just expanded to everything else," said Ron Goldstein. "All of a sudden, ornaments were out and bobbleheads became big."
Those nutcrackers now sit on a shelf by the entrance to a 10x10 square-foot room in his Mandalay home. It's jam-packed with a festive mix of carefully-organized collectibles, complete with tinsel and bows.
Goldstein spent his career as general counsel for the Yankees. In that time, he crossed paths with franchise legends, and acquired priceless pieces associated with Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter — among others.
When he moved to Lakewood Ranch, he left most of it at museums back home, so that New Yorkers could enjoy it.
"Here, I don't have many people that see it. That's something that bothers me," Goldstein said. "Back home, I had an open-door policy. Everybody would come in."
His Yankee-themed Christmas room changes every year, but that first nutcracker is always proudly displayed as his most cherished item.
Easton Wright and his family are accustomed to snowy scenes at this time of year. Before they embraced the palm trees down here, they lived in New York.
Their home isn't filled with a huge collection of snow globes or various nativity scenes.
What they do have is little trees — lots of them. Those accompany their yearly Christmas tree in adorning the house for the holidays.
"We just have trees all around," Wright said.
For Barbara Thornton, one Christmas item specifically stands out and brings back a whole array of memories when it is rung — a golden bell with a snowman on it.
Thornton and her husband John had to get creative when their children, who are now 48 and 44, were young. They utilized a golden bell for the kids to ring when they were awake on Christmas morning.
This tradition was created due to not wanting to miss their reactions to presents as their bedrooms were on different floors.
The tradition continued even after the kids were already in college. When they would return from college for the holidays, they would still ring it. The kids have been moved out for some time now, but the bell remains a sentimental item and tradition.
"We ring it every year, just to hear it to bring back the memories," Barbara Thornton said.
For Shirl Hershey, Christmas means more than gifts under the tree and Santa Claus. For her, it is a religious holiday and she likes to treat it as one in a creative way — by baking a birthday cake for Jesus.
For 40 years Hershey has done this. It doesn't have to be too fancy, as it's the thought that counts. For many years it was a Jell-O cake, with green on the bottom, red on the top and whipped cream.
"I wanted to make Christ the center of Christmas and wanted our kids to know that this is about his birthday and the gift that he gave to us," Hershey said. "The salvation that comes from his life."
Lori Maglathlin, now 65, began collecting dated and sentimental Christmas ornaments when she was 16 years old. Each one of the 200 on her tree, has a story behind it. Most still have their original boxes and she tries to limit herself to one ornament a year now.
Maglathlin's mission is to find anything unique and different. She tries to avoid Hallmark and mass produced ones and is attracted to old fashioned Santas.
She was inspired by her mother, Eddy Nolan's, love of Christmas. Maglathlin described Nolan's ornaments as "pretty and hand painted." She treated them with care and only had about a dozen and Maglathlin still owns two of them that she received after her mother passed.
"Every year is something different, it's history, a story and things change."
The first one she purchased was at Marshall's and was a Disney themed one with Mickey and Donald Duck with the year 1976.
Each time December rolls around, Phyllis Haan takes it as an opportunity. Each time she leaves the house she wears at least one of four colors — red, green, white and black — in order to celebrate the Christmas season.
On top of just those colors, she often has some sort of festive prop, such as a Santa hat, earrings or even holiday themed clips on her shoes. Haan is originally from Michigan but doesn't let the warm weather take away her Christmas spirit.
"It makes December festive and even though it's warm down here, we gotta make the best of it," Haan said.
