Christmas home tour is 1 to 5 p.m. Nov. 28
Managing editor
Kathy Ehrlich, 2096 Sunrise Road, Marion, has had a love for collecting snowmen as long as she can remember.
Her grandmother gave her a stuffed snowman more than 35 years ago when she was in fifth grade.
“I slept with that thing so much I about wore it out,” she said, referring to its delicate condition.
These days the heirloom treasure is kept safely away in a box, hopefully preserving it from further wear.
Ehrlich doesn’t know for sure why she is so fascinated by the three-tiered mound of white.
It may have been her early childhood living in Alaska, where snow was plentiful, or it might have begun when her family followed her Army dad to Texas where there wasn’t any snow.
Ehrlich and her family eventually moved to El Dorado where she graduated from high school.
Ehrlich is married to Mike Ehrlich and they have two children — Sam, a freshman at Kansas State University, and Katey, a freshman at Marion High School.
“I’ve always rooted for the underdog,” Ehrlich said with a smile. “I’ve felt the snowman gets ignored at Christmas because Santa takes center stage.”
But in the Ehrlich home, snowmen are front and center, displayed year-round. The pieces include wall hangings, paintings, and ceramic and stuffed snowmen but at Christmas time, the Ehrlichs bring out even more of the whimsical creatures.
One of Kathy Ehrlich’s favorites is an unusual ceramic snowman with imperfect mounds of “snow” and odd “stick” arms.
“That’s how life is and how most of us are,” Ehrlich said, imperfect.
As part of the Marion City Library’s Christmas home tour, visitors will see nearly 100 pieces of Ehrlich’s snowman collection.
Many of the pieces were given to her as gifts — some were homemade, some were purchased — all with special meaning.
There’s one that was a craft project when Katey was in first grade, showing four snowmen on a painted, blue paper — the Ehrlich snowman family. That treasure hangs by the family’s front door.
Each piece of the collection is unique much the way snowmen are in winter.
Other homes on the tour
The homes on the tour with the Ehlichs’ include homes of Jerome and Donna Hajek, 320 N. Freeborn St.; Andy and Stacy Hansen, 1842 N. Quail Creek Road; and Mark and Lisa Johnson, 2175 E. U.S. 56, Marion.
The tour also includes a Christmas village provided by Mary Jeffrey at Valley United Methodist Church, 300 E. Santa Fe St., Marion.