Portable toilet as a Christmas gift!

Normally a three-year-old girl would always prefer a doll, a lovely dress or maybe a book on fairy tales as a Christmas gift from Santa Claus.

But for Hannah Brown it was completely different or for that matter queer or weird gift she demanded from Santa. Can you imagine, it was a portable toilet!

Hannah and Grenier with the Christmas gift

"She's not the typical, average little girl who chooses average things," said her mother, Emma Palmer, 27, pointing out that Hannah wanted to be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween.

"She knows what she wants," said her father, Adrian Brown, 28. As it was not a joke Palmer and Brown set out to see just how hard it would be to make Hannah's Christmas wish come true. Palmer began making phone calls to several portable toilet renters in Cambridge, Kitchener and Guelph.

She and Brown tried to dissuade Hannah by suggesting other ideas for Christmas gifts, but she kept repeating her first wish. Palmer and Brown said they knew Hannah would be disappointed if she didn't receive the portable toilet on Christmas Day.

About a week before Christmas, Palmer reached Dan Grenier, at Porta Plus Portables, a local business that rents portable toilets.

"I think it was the oddest request we've had," said Grenier. "At first, I thought it was friends playing a joke on me." On Christmas Eve, Grenier - who Palmer, Brown and Hannah affectionately refer to as Santa Dan - delivered the portable toilet to their driveway while Hannah was at her grandparents' house. He even helped to hide it in a corner so she wouldn't see.

On Christmas morning, Hannah opened all her presents, and noticed something was missing.

"The first thing she said was, 'I didn't get my Porta Potty,' and she was devastated," said Palmer. Hannah began to wonder if she had made it on Santa's "Naughty or Nice" list.

So, Palmer and Brown took her out into the driveway where her portable toilet was sitting, complete with a Christmas bow. The look on her face was exactly what they had hoped for.

But it didn't end there. Grenier left the family a gift bag on the porch. Inside was a card addressed to "Mommy and Daddy" with their money inside, which he told them to put in Hannah's education fund, as well as a piggy bank shaped like a portable toilet for Hannah. Grenier said he never thought twice about helping the family with its unusual request.

"It was just us helping out a little girl and making her Christmas gift come true," he said.

He let them keep the toilet until the weekend. Hannah made the most of it, refusing to use the toilet inside the house. When Grenier came to pick it up, he and Hannah's parents explained to Hannah that this was one of Santa's helpers coming to take the toilet back to the North Pole. Palmer and Brown have always told Hannah that it is good to be different and encouraged her uniqueness. But they hope next year's Christmas wish will be a little bit easier.

"Her birthday is in February, so I'm even more nervous about what her birthday request is going to be," laughed Palmer.

Early Christmas brings him joy before death

It was a fairy tale type farewell Christmas for a dying boy. 13-year-old Devin Kohlman's last wish was to be home for Christmas. As doctors had told the family that Devin didn't have long to live hundreds of residents in the Ohio city of Port Clinton decided to give him an early Christmas.

Devin Kohlman rests at his home in Port Clinton, Ohio after returning from a Cincinnati hospital.

It was an unbelievable welcome that awaited little Devin when he was flown from Cincinnati where he was being treated to Port Clinton so that he could spend his final days at home.

There was a festive tree outside his window and a motorcycle-riding Santa Claus. They sang carols outside the family's apartment, piled shaved ice into drifting snow near his window, and decorated a park with lights, reindeer cut-outs, and a red "Merry Christmas, Devin" sign.

"It brought him a sense of joy to know so many people cared," says a family friend.

Devin, who suffered from brain cancer, died Monday afternoon. Relatives and friends gathered for a vigil after his death while an early-season snow fell. "He had the gift of being able to see how much everyone loved him," says his mother, Alexis Kohlman.

Residents filled the city's main street late at night as Devin was driven home with a police escort. While he couldn't go outside, he could see from a window how the community was making his last wish come true.

Thousands of cards from as far away as France, Australia, and Russia filled the family's apartment.

"We read as many of the cards as we could to him," his mother says. "He has reminded everybody all over the world of what's important and that's love."

Woman ordered to spend next five Christmases in jail

How would you like to spend a "Holbrook Holiday" for the Christmas?

Judge Michael J. Holbrook

Sorry! It is not meant for normal human beings like you. It is only for people who indulge in criminal activities.

Judge Michael J. Holbrook of Franklin County Common Pleas Courthouse, Ohio, sentenced a woman convicted of illegally selling drivers' licenses to five days in jail - the next five Christmas days.

The unusual sentence for Betina Young, 44, of Columbus, is what Judge Michael J. Holbrook calls a "Holbrook Holiday."

Judge Holbrook asks the convicted defendants for their favourite holidays - their birthday, the fourth of July - and then sentences to them to spend that day in prison.

"I've been doing this for nine years now," Holbrook said, "I take some date that is important to the individual and make them give it up.

For example, if they celebrate Christmas, I would make them go to jail for three to five days during the Christmas holiday so they miss Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with their families."

Young was sentenced to her "Holbrook Holiday" for issuing state ID cards and driver's licenses to immigrants who entered the country illegally. In addition to five years probation and a $3,000 fine for tampering with state records, Young must also go to jail each Christmas for the next five years, Holbrook said.

"In Young's case, as in other cases where I have done this, I thought that the gravity of the situation deserved some sort of reminder of what could happen if they do not comply with their probation," Holbrook said.

If Young violates her probation she would be sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to her sentencing report.

Holbrook said he got the idea from federal court judges who will sometimes sentence individuals to jail on every federal holiday throughout the year.

Holbrook says that he has given "Holbrook Holidays" to approximately 40 people.

"With the cost of prisons rising in Ohio, this really is an alternative and effective form of sentencing," Holbrook said.