Christmas spirit will never end

"Merry Christmas?" It was the first time Luanne Kent had heard the greeting as a question, but she knew exactly how to respond: "Yes."

It has now been 42 years since she married Harlan Christmas in her Ogden apartment and vowed to keep the Christmas spirit going year-round. Today, though, anybody who expects to see thousands of twinkling lights on the Christmas house in Salt Lake City is going to be disappointed.

"We hate to put them up like anybody else," admits Harlan, 76, aka "Father Christmas."

Hoping to share a few stories of what it's like to hold Christmas dinners and pay Christmas bills year-round, Harlan and the rest of the Christmas clan invited me to join them for a festive Free Lunch of pizza, salad and key lime pie at Barbara Christmas Chapman's bungalow in Sugar House.

Barbara is the oldest of the two Christmas sisters. When Luanne and Harlan decided to have themselves a merry little Christmas in 1966, they were disappointed that another relative had already taken the name "Carol" for his daughter. They liked the idea of looking up "Christmas Carol" one day in the phone book.

There was already a cousin Mary in the family, so the Christmases instead settled for "Barbara." But three years later, when their second daughter arrived, they couldn't resist naming her Holly.

Other than hating the song, "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas," answering to "Holly Christmas" hasn't been bad, admits Holly, now 34 and a computer tech specialist in Salt Lake City. "People always ask if my ancestors were big gift givers," she says. "I tell them, 'You know, I think the word 'Christmas' has been around a lot longer than presents.' "

When the Christmas sisters were younger, people would call all the time, asking for Mary or Santa. "I'd say, 'OK, hold on,' " says Barbara, 37, a technical writer and mother of two. Now, with the invention of caller ID, prank calls are thankfully rare.

Although Barbara's married name is Chapman, everyone still knows her as Barbara Christmas. At one time, she and her husband even looked at houses on Glen Arbor Street — better known as Salt Lake City's famous "Christmas Street."

"We seriously thought about moving there, but then I decided that having the name is enough," says Barbara. "It's one of those names you don't forget. I'd much rather be called Christmas, though, than something like, say, Halloween."

"No kidding," says Holly. "Then Mom and Dad probably would have named us 'Trick' and 'Treat.' "