BETHEL — Lee Hughes, of Bethel admits she is, “Christmas crazy.”
Her husband Woody, not so much.
“He’s sort of on board but gets upset at the Christmas music and turns it off,” said Lee, who admits that she plays it non-stop and especially loves Vince Guaraldi’s, A Charlie Brown Christmas. “I have to dance madly like the Peanuts’ kids do, when they drop everything and start gyrating. [then] I get out the movies, [all the while] Woody is finding other “important” things to do.”
“He has really crimped my style,” said Hughes.
For his part, Woody said Christmas was a downer growing up. “My father died near the holidays and my mother ‘went dark'”
Lee happily remembers a Christmas about a few years ago when Woody injured his back, “He sat there [medicated] for hours just staring at the tree.”
The following year he told her their Christmas tree needed to go in their attached greenhouse. “You had plenty of room for it [inside] when you were just staring at it dopey,” she responded.
She describes their tree of late as a “little squirt” not fit for the glass ornaments her mother passed on. But she still puts out her hand-carved Santa set and the Christmas stockings her grandmother knit. “I sneak that stuff up on the shelf,” she said.
Ironically, while the Hughes’ house is aglow in December, on October 31, things look different. Lee said she hates trick or treating and sometimes shuts off all the lights and leaves. “Halloween, the whole thing was wrecked because you can’t give out apples or healthy things. It’s all wrappers of candy on the street the next day. I want to say to all of them, ‘you’re going to brush your teeth tonight, right?’ People look at me like, ‘what a buzz kill she is.'”
Elaine Emery’s handmade ornaments, many are sewn for the children at the West Paris Library. Rose Lincoln
Elaine Emery spends hours at her sewing machine in her West Paris home. Rose Lincoln
The Giver
It may be impossible to list the hundreds of people whose holidays Elaine Emery has brightened.
Last year after receiving a cancer diagnosis, Emery went to radiation treatments in Lewiston every morning. Every afternoon she came home and sewed. In her West Paris home, Christmas fabrics cover the table that sits at the center of the large, light-filled room. Her real sewing room is a different room in the basement.
This year she made eight table runners for her fellow singers in the bell choir at the Second Congregational Church in Norway. This year and for the past several years she has made 60 felt envelope ornaments filled with candy canes and pencils for the children at the West Paris Library who will also take home an angel ornament made by Emery. The residents in Market Square Nursing Home in South Paris will all receive handmade ornaments, too.
She sews for her children and grandchildren even though they mostly sew, now, too.
Emery said in 2019, the library open house was cancelled because of COVID. She asked West Paris Librarian Brenda Lynn Gould to leave the library Christmas tree up year round and she sewed and hung different ornaments for every month.
Snowflakes in January, hearts for February, shamrocks in March and so on. The last week of every month Gould gave them to patrons.
Emery hosts Christmas ornament making workshops at the library and has loaned the library her 75-piece nutcracker collection; her Christmas village; her 20 Santa’s and her China doll collection. The dolls were placed around the Christmas tree, to “crochet” and “quilt.”
“She is a force of nature!” said Gould.
Garret, Leah and Melody Bonnema at the Bethel Nativity Pageant.
Happy movies
A stone’s throw from the Hughes’ house, Garret Bonnema and his daughter Leah are likely watching happy holiday movies together. They have done this since before they owned a TV and would have to go to friends’ houses to see Christmas movies like the Grinch and Miracle on 34th Street.
More recently, Leah wrote a book that reads like a holiday movie. “The Holiday Breakdown,” is about a writer who meets the man of her dreams after her car breaks down on her way across the country.
He follows her to New Hampshire to help her take over the family cross country skiing business. A couple of hundred pages in, they finally kiss.
Garret sends three lists of their Christmas movie favorites, then re-sends the lists, with Leah’s edits.
The first one he calls, “SO GOOD:”Scrooged – Bill MurrayFred Claus – Vince Vaughn, Paul GiamattiThe Santa Clause – Tim AllenElf – Will FerrellThe Holiday – Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack BlackLove Actually – Hugh Grant and many othersHow the Grinch Stole Christmas – either animated with Boris Karloff or the Jim Carey. Leah adds, “I also really really love the new animated version with Benedict Cumberbatch.”Polar ExpressThe Christmas Chronicles – Kurt RussellGet Santa – Jim Broadbent
The next six, The Bonnema’s call, “the old classics.”
“Christmas has always been a very special time of year for me. Hanging lights and ornaments on the tree, the warm light from the fireplace and the crackling sound of classic holiday records playing in the background – Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra.
There were four of us kids and we all had our own ornaments to find spots for on the tree. Every Christmas my mom would give us each a new ornament, starting the year we were born. Some she made by hand, some represented a favorite hobby or interest we had that particular year, and some were more classic Christmas ornaments – but each had our first name and the year on the back in my mom’s handwriting.
A timeline in ornaments. The idea being that when we ventured out on our own, no matter where we were, we would have these little pieces of home to hang on our own Christmas trees. I still love hanging those old, tattered ornaments on our tree to this day and the season doesn’t officially start for me until “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole is played on the record player and I find that very first ornament with “Steph 1973” written on the back.
I have continued the tradition with my girls and love imagining them getting those same feelings as they hang their ornaments on a tree in their first apartment somewhere, thinking back on the memories that we’re making now.
“A new holiday tradition that my husband and I started with our kids when they were toddlers is making homemade pasta for Christmas Eve dinner. Growing up my mom always told stories of making pasta with her Italian grandmother. She would roll out big pieces of dough on the dining room table, cut it into ribbons and hang them to dry on string that criss crossed her grandmother’s small kitchen.
So although this Christmas Eve pasta-making tradition is new, it does have roots. Our daughters, now 12 and 15, pretty much go through the entire process on their own – from making the dough through hanging the pasta to dry (on a nifty little drying rack… though I do love picturing the old way)!” – from Stephanie Herbeck of Bethel
Denise Hurd, left and Kim Gautreau and three other Andover women light the Andover Town Common each year for the holidays. Rose Lincoln
Lora Owings, from left, with Denise Hurd, Kim Gautreau and two other Andover women light the Andover Town Common each year for the holidays. Rose Lincoln
Andover Common
Kathy McMahon’s best gift submitted photo
Best gift
Kathy McMahon sent this special memory, “One of my favorite songs has always been Carole King’s, Tapestry, well my husband had a childhood friend from Walderboro who is now renowned for her art work, create my very own “Tapestry” for me. It included everything special in my life.
“It’s about 2-1/2′ x 4′ and it includes a lighthouse where I have a memorial bench for my parents in Marblehead; my two daughters on the bench and my dog beside it; me paddle boarding and my dad sailing; my favorite flowers for various personal reasons; a dragonfly with a bitten wing and forget-me-nots, in memory of my best friend; my husband kneeling with his vows from our wedding; a bell with angel wings and the date of my transplant; and a cloud with our wedding date.
He gave it to me the year after my transplant and you better believe I cried a lot as I noticed each detail.
“It was, by far, the most beautiful and special gift I’ve ever received!” – Kathy McMahon
John Walker with help from Artist Jewell Clark and others made this Bethel sign hanging on Tony Donovan’s Railroad Street barn. It will sparkle red and green the week of Christmas. Rose Lincoln
John Walker
John Walker said he was about three when he first became fascinated with Christmas and specifically their family’s Christmas village.
When he was five he spent his allowance on outdoor, blow-mold, Christmas figurines for his Flat Road yard. He helped his ‘Grandpa Pip’ decorate the deck at Sudbury Village, too, and remembers that it became more popular in subsequent years with residents adding to the cheer.
About 15 years ago, when Walker was a middle schooler, he started to publicly display about 100 pieces of the now 300-piece set. It is currently exhibited in the Maine Line Products window at 23 Main Street each Christmas.
Walker said he loves Christmas because, “it’s the feeling, it’s the cheer … it’s something that brings everyone together every year.”
He and his helpers erect and light eight trees on Bethel Town Common and another five on Walkers Mills Road. They decorate the gazebo on the common with garland and kissing balls. The town office windows he encircles with lights. Walker helps Stephanie Herbeck with the “Light Up Main Street Holiday Car Parade,” too.
Walker said he puts up his own Christmas tree on Nov. 11, because, “isn’t it nice to have a cozy holiday atmosphere at Thanksgiving dinner?”
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