Feature: Christmas on the Combahee

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The angel may need a little touch up—her wings are made of leaves gathered from the nearby woods and gilded with gold spray paint. No worries, though, the Kulzes are adept at minor repairs. And major ones. They’ve spent the last 12 years rolling up their sleeves and restoring their 1830s river house all by themselves, from floor joists to window glazing to front porch railings. So it’s fitting that their family Christmas here is truly a homemade celebration. The tree is decked out in handmade ornaments and the dining table is laden with home-cooked goodies. A dab of glue to fortify angel wings is no problem at all.

Every year since 1998, the Kulze holiday routine has been the same. As soon as school lets out for winter break, Ann and John load up their four children, three dogs, gifts, coolers, and bags of groceries and head over the rivers and through the woods to the heart of the ACE Basin. Their cabin at Plum Hill sits on 1,000 acres of pristine land, one-third of a larger hunting preserve called “the Bluff” that Ann’s father, Harry Gregorie, bought with three friends in the 1970s. His ties to this ecological wonderland go back for generations—the land directly across the river is known as Gregorie’s Neck. Ann and her six siblings went to the Bluff as children, accompanying their father on hunting trips. She and John were married there (as was Forrest Gump—in fact, more than half of the movie was filmed on the property). But the Kulzes didn’t have their own Plum Hill abode until 1995, after they discovered an abandoned farmhouse near Earhart, South Carolina, about 45 minutes away.
“I knew as soon as I saw it that this was the house,” says Ann, who is perhaps better known as “Dr. Ann,” the noted wellness expert and author of Dr. Ann’s 10-Step Diet.

“I loved its beautiful heart pine walls, its simplicity.” They moved the old dwelling to their bluff on the Combahee River and began the meticulous—and still-ongoing—restoration, taking care to preserve the exact footprint and charming details, including the bullet holes in the back wall, courtesy of General Sherman. It took three years of labor-intensive weekends to make the farmhouse habitable. The immense undertaking has turned John, an ophthalmologist, into a master carpenter. “I’ve always been a tinkerer,” the skilled eye surgeon says. “But this was much more than I’d ever planned to do. Once we began tearing things apart, I figured out how to put them back together. Now I love coming out and working—it’s a total escape.”

With two busy medical practices and four kids involved in school and sports, orchestrating a 10-day country getaway, especially around the holidays, is no small feat. “But it’s definitely worth it; the natural beauty out here is spectacular,” says Ann. “There’s a lot of planning and packing on the front end, but once we get in the car and start passing the rice fields stretching as far as you can see, we leave the busy, crazy world behind us. It’s like 20 yoga classes all in one minute.”

After they arrive, tradition begins to unfold. The Kulze kids get down to business; their first task—tree-tagging. “We hop in the golf cart and scout the cedar groves for the best Christmas tree,” says Liz, the oldest. “We tie ribbons on the ones with potential, fighting over our favorites. They always look so much smaller in the woods, but when we cut one on Christmas Eve and bring it inside, it’s huge, with these explosive limbs going in every direction.”

The days leading up to Christmas are a glue gun free-for-all. Wreaths and garlands are made, popcorn is strung, and everybody joins in an ornament-making frenzy, using acorns, seed pods, gumballs, leaves, palm fronds, and pine cones from the land, mixed with sequins, glitter, Styrofoam balls, paint, and who knows what else. “We all go at it and see how crazy and creative we can be,” Ann says. Despite the fact that three of the four children are now teenagers (Liz, 17, Frazier, 16, Jack, 15, and Lucie, 11), they still enjoy seeing what they can come up with. The result is a craft corner-meets-Ranger Rick tree dripping with precious handmade ornaments.

The kitchen is yet another outlet for Kulze creativity. “Mom and I cook the entire time,” says Liz, the chief baker and budding chef of the clan. Mother and daughter plan the menus well in advance, including the family holiday standards: a hearty game soup with Liz’s cornbread on Christmas Eve, a Christmas day brunch with venison sausage, and then a big Christmas dinner, likely a venison tenderloin cooked on the outside firepot over wood from the pecan orchards and paired with rice and black skillet cabbage. “Nothing gives better flavor than pecan wood,” John says. Christmas dessert is always Liz’s stellar pumpkin cheesecake with gingerbread crust. Granted, it’s not all low-fat fare and may include a few steps outside the 10-step guidelines, but Dr. Ann’s approach is all about making healthy, nutritional, creative choices and knowing why one should choose certain foods and avoid others. And “Because it’s Christmas” often serves as an excellent reason to indulge.

Among other activities during the week-long Basin stay are a morning quail hunt and a sunset walk along the dykes on Christmas Eve. And with Ann’s parents having a house a quarter mile away, extended family members (21 cousins!) come out to stay between Christmas and New Year’s. If it all sounds like Currier and Ives on the Combahee, then you’ve got the picture. “We’re big believers in tradition, especially for children,” says Ann. “It makes them feel comforted, grounded, and strong, and it’s a great connector for multiple generations. We’re just trying to carry on things that are wholesome.”

It seems to be working. When a 17-year-old with an active social life willingly leaves behind the cell phone, computer, Christmas shopping, parties, and all her friends to spend time with family in an unheated, centuries-old cabin, something’s going right. “I love it out here,” says Liz. “I don’t miss being at home, because home is supposed to be where you feel completely warm and safe and protected, and nowhere else feels more like that to me than here, especially at Christmas.”