Can't put kibosh on Christmas

This Christmas was about making the best of it.

As blizzard conditions swept through the Midlands, family gatherings were postponed, flights were canceled and messy streets got worse.

The weather left some with no choice but to spend Christmas much differently from what they had planned. Despite the headaches, many retained the holiday spirit.

A weary traveler shrugged off sleeping on a terminal floor at Eppley Airfield.

Apartment dwellers, snowed in and unable to see their families, toasted each other at an impromptu Christmas potluck.

And one man spent the entire day shoveling all his neighbors' driveways.

There is no question that Christmas 2009 was one to remember — for better and for worse.

Here's a look at how the holiday shaped up for some:

* * *

Shirley Schlichting of the Millard area spent Christmas morning with her husband and kids — at Eppley Airfield.

“We're trying to keep a smile on our faces,” she said. “I've already been told today that I'm not an adventurous traveler.”

The family's holiday vacation to sunny Florida was delayed a day after their flight was canceled. They hoped to get on another flight by today and planned to stick it out at the airport rather than drive home.

“It's just pretty messy all over,” said Shirley's husband, Jeff Schlichting, who lined up chair cushions on the floor to make a bed. “I know if we go back, we'll never get out of our driveway again. It's just easier to wait.”

They were among dozens of travelers who saw their Eppley flights canceled.

Another Florida-bound family, the Gilberts of Bellevue, were also playing the waiting game at the airport.

They had hoped to spend Christmas in their home state for the first time in years. But the chance of flying out of Omaha on Friday was slim.

“Oh, well,” said Becca Gilbert, traveling with her husband, Brad, an Air Force technical sergeant, and 4-year-old daughter, Alexis. “The military kind of gets you used to it.”

* * *

Linda Wolf had planned to spend Christmas with her brother and his family in Bellevue, but the snow put a stop to that.

So she went to a Christmas potluck dinner organized by a neighbor at Whitehall Condominiums near 127th Street and West Dodge Road. About 30 people attended.

“I think everybody here had plans that fell through,” Wolf said. “So they knocked on our doors and said ‘Come join us,' and we did.”

Barb Husebo and another neighbor organized the event. The food was “a mixture of all kinds of stuff,” she said. “And, of course, wine. We had a really good time.”

Wolf brought sauerkraut and spareribs.

* * *

At least six rooms at downtown's Embassy Suites hotel were occupied by stranded travelers on Friday, said Nick Enzolera, the hotel's front office manager.

“We took some people to the airport this morning and had to go back and get them a couple of hours later after their flights were canceled,” he said.

Enzolera said the weather caused the hotel to lose a lot of reservations when would-be travelers learned of Omaha's wintry weather. The stranded guests helped make up some of those losses, but “we lost more than we gained,” he said.

Embassy Suites guests Tricia and Tom Rubenstein of Blacksburg, Va., planned to enjoy Christmas at the hotel with their son Tom Jr. and his fiancee.

“We're here and they're here,” Tricia Rubenstein said. “We'll eat lunch and dinner here.”

Enzolera said the hotel was offering a special holiday meal for guests.

* * *

Church services were canceled across the Omaha area, but about 50 people braved the snow for midnight Mass at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in south Omaha.

“You guys are nuts. But if you are going to be nuts, be nuts for our Lord,” the Rev. Ross Burkhalter said in greeting the congregation.

Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in northeast Omaha also went ahead with services. About 20 people attended each of the two morning Masses.

“We never cancel, because I live right here,” said the Rev. Craig Loecker.

Sharon Seventh-day Adventist Church, 33rd and Lake Streets, canceled its services planned for today, said communications director Angela Vega-Johnson.

“Unfortunately, the weather is dictating,” she said. “Safety is the most important thing.”

* * *

Mike Schroeder, who lives near Methodist Hospital, spent Christmas Day clearing snow from six of his neighbors' driveways.

Schroeder used his snowblower twice, repeating the task after city plows came through and pushed snow back into the driveways.

He said it was the least he could do. After all, he said, one of his neighbors is sick; another is out of town.

“It's how you be neighbors,” he said.

His snowblower is large, but it's still hard work.

“I'm 67, so I get a little tired, but I can still do it,” Schroeder said, joking that someday his neighbors “are going to have to do it for me. What goes around comes around.”

Schroeder planned to reward himself by having Christmas dinner with his family, including his 4-year-old grandson, Ian.

* * *

At 6:30 a.m. Friday as the storm raged, Shirley Tvrdy left her house near 51st Avenue and Howard Street, determined to get to her job as a respiratory therapist at Bergan Mercy Medical Center.

As her Monte Carlo neared Leavenworth Street, just two blocks from her home, she saw drifting snow ahead but tried to power through it, becoming hopelessly mired in more than a foot of snow.

“I won't try to do that again,'' she thought.

A co-worker in a “monster truck'' eventually came to give her a ride in to the hospital, she said. Through such shared rides, almost everyone on her shift ultimately made it to work.

At the end of her shift, Tvrdy found her car where she had left it, nearly drifted over on the still-unplowed street with snow over the hood.

It took Tvrdy, her husband, two sons and a neighbor a half-hour to dig it out, and the neighbor used his SUV to make tracks that she could drive through to back out of the snow and get the car off the street.

“I don't even know his name,'' Tvrdy said, “but he's a good neighbor.''

There was no sign of a plow at 9 p.m. Friday, but Tvrdy wasn't concerned.

“They're having a hard enough time right now keeping the main streets open.''

* * *

More than 3,000 Crawford County, Iowa, residents had no electricity Friday, but they weren't left to shiver in their homes.

Donations of food and other supplies poured into a community center in Manilla, which, with the help of generators, became a Christmas refuge for those who had been without power since Wednesday afternoon.

“People have been really good about donating,” said Greg Miller, Crawford County emergency management director.

Officials of MidAmerican Energy and other utilities were struggling to get the electricity back on, Miller said. Most of those without power were from Manilla, the rest from Ricketts.

Cots were set up in the community center, and firefighters picked up those who couldn't get there on their own.

“All my life, in 54 years,” Miller said, “I've never seen a Christmas like this before.”

* * *

Travelers and semitrailer truck drivers filled hotels, motels and truck stops to capacity after Interstate 80 was closed near Grand Island and York.

In York, the 126-room Holiday Inn, less than a quarter-mile off I-80, had no vacancies by midafternoon, said hotel employee Jeremy Cate.

The guests were drivers who had been stranded, been in accidents or couldn't see through the blowing snow.

Travelers from as far away as Texas were scrambling for a limited number of rooms in York, Cate said. By nightfall, few rooms in town were available.

It was a similar story in Grand Island.

Bosselman Travel Center filled its 400-stall lot, which happens only in the worst of storms, said manager Tally Hansen. The 51-room attached Motel 6 was filled with frustrated travelers.

“There's been a lot of grouchy people,” said Justin Brooks, the motel's assistant general manager.

World-Herald staff writers Ross Boettcher, Henry J. Cordes, Marjie Ducey, Elizabeth Freeman and Chris Machian contributed to this report.

Contact the writer:

444-3100, maggie.obrien@owh.com

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