The Christmas Stocking Was Full : Holiday Unfolds in Church, Shops, Hospital, Bars, Police Station

Twelve-year-old Raul Gomez did not have to wait long to spend the $20 his grandmother gave him for Christmas. About a dozen stores in the nearby San Fernando Mall opened their doors just hours after he finished unwrapping his presents.

“I don’t know if I’m going to buy anything,” young Gomez said while examining a battery-powered toy car in Dino’s Discount Outlet. “I’m just glad some of the stores are opened so I can see what there is to buy.”

It is extremely unusual for retailers to be open on Christmas Day, but competition is so fierce among the independent merchants in San Fernando that some would rather forgo a holiday than forgo a sale day.

“It has been a tough season for all of the stores and you don’t want to be closed when your competition is open,” said Santorre (Sandy) Aboularage, owner of A&A; Style Club, a clothing store for men and women.

But sales are not the only reason Aboularage believes so many stores were open in the open-air mall.

“There are too many religions, too many people from different backgrounds,” said Aboularage, who describes himself as a half-Arab, half-Italian who immigrated to the United States in 1957.

“Koreans own the children’s clothing store over there. The guy next door is Moslem,” he said. “And we all need the bucks.”

As Aboularage turned to help a customer, young Gomez and his best friend, Mike Lopez, walked out of the store and began strolling down the mall. Suddenly they noticed that the toy store was opened.

“Transformers!” they shouted in unison, speaking of the popular robots that can be twisted into laser guns and exotic space craft.

As the youths ran across the street, Gomez was already reaching for the $20 bill that was stuffed in his back pocket.

Christmas was complicated for Robert Rockhold.

A special-education counselor confined to a wheelchair from a spinal cord injury, Rockhold had all his shopping done and presents wrapped well before gift-giving time. But last week, while he was out, burglars broke into his Sylmar condominium and made off with the presents, as well as with his stereo, television and some other possessions, all worth about $2,000, he said. Ironically, Rockhold had bought the TV at a police auction of unclaimed stolen property.

The burglars didn’t all get away, he said. Rockhold said alert neighbors, one of whom has just one leg, grabbed two teen-agers leaving the scene, one of them carrying a speaker, and held them until police arrived.

None of the stolen goods other than the speaker have been recovered, Rockhold said, but he had time to replace most of the presents. Anyway, he said, presents aren’t all that important.

“Christmas is just getting together and sharing the holiday,” Rockhold said Wednesday, and he did that, burglars or no.

The Bombay Bicycle Club in Burbank is a popular spot for singles. But there were few singles mingling at the bar Christmas afternoon. Most of the folks there were married.

“I’ve got a house full of screaming kids and yakking women,” Brian Lipton of Burbank said. “My brother here is in from Arizona and we don’t get to see each other often.”

“Yeah,” said Richard Lipton, finishing his brother’s thought. “We wanted a quiet place to have a beer, watch the end of the basketball game and talk.”

“Guess we found it,” Brian added.

Polly and Stanley Mills have been married 43 years. Every Christmas since their wedding they have gone out to the nearest bar to have a drink.

“Like to get this old girl out of the house on Christmas Day so the two of us can be alone for a while,” Stanley chuckled as he nursed a Scotch on the rocks.

“We both used to need it when we had lot of kids around,” Polly said. “But the kids live pretty far away now and this Christmas we’re by ourselves. This drink has just kind of become a tradition with us.”

The couple gave each other a loving glance and raised their glasses for a salute.

“Merry Christmas, old girl, “ said Stanley.

“Happy New Year to you, ya’ ole coot,” Polly answered.

Babies in the maternity ward of Granada Hills Community Hospital were taken to their mothers Wednesday in Christmas stockings sewn by the nursing staff. “They are made out of red felt with white felt around the top,” nurse Leslie White said. “All the children went out in red stockings.”

Nurses at the hospital started stuffing stockings with newborns three years ago, White said, and this year they made 26 of them, leaving lots left over for next year.

Carl DiPasquale said he began going to the San Fernando Mission after World War II.

“I don’t know what it is,” he said. “The adobe walls that make the sanctuary so cool. The feeling of history. I don’t know, but there just seems to be more reverence here on Christmas.”

DiPasquale was an usher at the crowded 9 a.m. Mass. Even though each pew was filled, he was disappointed with the turnout.

“You should have seen it last year. There were people standing along the back wall. We had to put people up there,” he said, pointing to the choir loft.

“I had to clear people from the the aisles near the door--fire regulations, you know. We had so many people that we had to set up loudspeakers outside so they could hear the service.”

As he walked Wednesday across the mission’s courtyard, the warm Santa Ana wind bending the palms and olive trees side to side, DiPasquale sighed.

“Maybe there will be more people at the noon Mass. It’s going to be in Latin,” he said. “I’ve got to go home and eat breakfast. I’m an usher for that Mass too.”

The Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division headquarters in Reseda was a candy store of sorts Wednesday.

It seems that word spread throughout the community that the police station had been the benefactor of candy and cakes from appreciative residents of the area.

“We’ve got it all--cakes, pies, fudge, cookies--you name it,” Officer Vic Monroe said. “People thought it would be nice to give the guys something to eat on Christmas day, but the word got out to the kids that we were overstocked.”

About 30 to 40 children living nearby dropped by the station throughout the day to “pick up the slack that we couldn’t eat,” Monroe said.

“That’s OK because we’ve all had our fill, and the kids mainly seem to want the cupcakes. What I’m waiting for is a pastrami sandwich and maybe some booze.”

Times Staff Writer Marc Igler also contributed to this story.