Holiday a workday for many in Modesto

While many of us picture Christmas Day as a time when people are snug in their homes, making holiday memories with family, the reality is that there are many different realities. Some people are alone and home but don’t want to be, so they go out for meals and movies. Other people enjoy going to meals and movies with their loved ones. Some folks have to travel to be with friends and family. Others call assisted-living communities home, so they depend on staff members during the holidays.

The Bee visited several workplaces on Christmas Day to share a look at how some of your friends and neighbors spent the holiday.

Order up!

The crowds started as early as 6 a.m. Friday at the McHenry Avenue Denny’s just south of Briggsmore Avenue, and the crush of hungry diners was not expected to let up until the early hours Saturday.

“What’s it like to work Christmas? It’s busy. It’s go, go go,” said Sophy Phoeun, the restaurant’s general manager. She has worked every Christmas except two during her 15 years at the restaurant. She got the two holidays off because she was pregnant. She said the restaurant’s entire staff of 54 was expected to work Friday.

“This is the only day that everyone works,” she said.

The restaurant was packed at 10 a.m. with nearly two-dozen customers waiting for tables and booths to open up. In the kitchen, plates loaded with hash browns, pancakes, eggs, bacon and other breakfast fare were lined up along a counter near the cooks. The servers were a blur as they carried trays full of plates or steaming cups of coffee to tables and booths.

Phoeun said the shifts are kept short so workers can spend time with their families. Phoeun said her husband and three sons celebrate the holiday on Christmas Eve. Besides the fast pace, employees are paid time and a half and servers can earn as much as $100 in tips during a four-hour shift.

A friendly face

At The Stratford at Beyer Park assisted-living community, dining room server Elizabeth Brookshire started her shift at 7 a.m. Christmas morning. The part-time job at the north Modesto facility is her first. She’s been there three years and believes she’s worked each Christmas.

“It’s not horrible – it’s kind of great,” said the Modesto Junior College student, who’d be ending her workday at 2 p.m.

“It’s nice; I like being here because some residents just don’t have anyplace to go and I like being here with them,” the 20-year-old added.

And work didn’t affect her Christmas much. At home, it’s just her; stepbrother Jared Barron, 15; her mom; and stepdad, Brookshire said. They exchanged presents Thursday night, so all that remained Christmas morning was stocking stuffers.

As for the rest of her Christmas Day, “Usually we just do something when I’m off work. ... My family pushes everything back a bit,” she said. She has an older sister, with a 7-year-old son, in Ceres and said she’d perhaps see them later in the day.

It was a quiet morning at work because many residents were away with their families, but staffing was the same as any other day – three servers for breakfast and lunch, she said. The lunch crowd would likely be a bit bigger as residents were likely to be joined by family members or friends, Brookshire said.

As she cleared the remaining breakfast tables and chatted with residents who were finishing breakfast, she said, “We’ll reset the dining room, have our lunch and then serve lunch” starting at 11 or 11:30.

One thing Brookshire didn’t get to was church, she said.

“We were going to go last night but we did presents.”

She thought the family might go later Friday but didn’t know. “I grew up like that, going to church,” she said, “so this year feels off.”

Now playing

For many, going to the movies is as much of a Christmas tradition as stocking stuffers, eggnog and mistletoe.

“Once the presents are opened up, families want something to do and everything else is closed,” said Saul Trujillo, general manager of Brenden Theatres in downtown Modesto. “Movie theaters stay open every single day of the year. It’s a nice family outing on Christmas Day.”

Trujillo said Christmas is among the three busiest days for the movie theater, along with Memorial Day and Thanksgiving. He expected Christmas to be twice as busy as a typical Friday, with perhaps as many as 5,000 customers.

And that meant as many as 50 employees would be working throughout the day at the 18-screen theater, including Trujillo, who was planning to start work in the afternoon. That would make it the 20th Christmas he has worked since going to work for a movie theater as a 16-year-old.

Assistant managers Colton Perez and Patty Duarte said one of benefits of working the holiday is the customers are filled with holiday cheer and goodwill.

Power to the people

When you get a call from work on Christmas Eve, it’s never good news, said Marty Gonzales, Modesto Irrigation District line construction supervisor.

He got the call about 3:30 p.m., 45 minutes after a strong wind took down a tall cypress tree on Coffee Road, which in turn took down a dozen power poles and lines, leaving thousands of customers without power.

At the scene midmorning Christmas Day, Gonzales had been on the job all night and would remain there for as long into the day as it took to restore service to a remaining 150 to 200 customers, he said.

His wife’s family came to their home Friday morning for breakfast and to exchange gifts.

“Her family understands because my father-in-law worked in this business,” Gonzales said. His side of the family was to come over Friday evening, and the celebration would go on with or without him, he said.

“It’s common for line crews to work Christmas Eve or Christmas Day,” Gonzales said, “to take care of customers’ needs, but usually not to this extreme.”

The unexpected comes with the job, he said, and he makes the best of it.

“It’s the satisfaction of getting people back with power when they’re affected.”

Food ’n’ fuel

Christmas Day was flying by at the Arco AM-PM mini-market on McHenry Avenue at Rumble Road, employees said. Lots of folks were stopping by to gas up for trips to see friends and family, buy drinks and snacks for those road trips, or simply to pick up overlooked groceries such as milk.

Those who worked had short shifts of about four hours, said Katherine Rodriguez, although she started at 9:30 a.m. and didn’t leave until about 2:30 because she was helping refill coffee and other beverages.

Working didn’t affect her holiday much, though.

“I just did my Christmas last night with my grandchildren,” the 51-year-old said. Employees put in a request if they want the day off, she said, and “I tell other people if they want it off, I’ll work their shift. Other people have small children at home or family out of town.”

Co-worker Juliana Shea, working from 12:30 to 4 p.m., also celebrated on Christmas Eve.

“That’s when my daughter (Emily Deerdon, 4) opened her presents,” she said. “So I got to see her do that.”

What was she missing out on while working?

“Probably now they’re cleaning up. It was a mess.”

After her shift, she had planned to go to her mother’s house, but her mother was one of the MID customers who still was without power Friday afternoon. The Christmas dinner would be tamales, so “if she still has no power, we’ll probably move it to my house.”

This story was originally published December 25, 2015 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Holiday a workday for many in Modesto."