The holidays are all about tradition, and while some prefer to whip up old-time family recipes at home, others turn to local neighborhood bakeries to supply their favorite treats.

For the bakeries, often with limited staff, it adds up to crushing work hours at this time of year to ensure that they meet all the specialty orders that come pouring in during the holiday rush.

At Mainly Grains Bakers, on Broadway in South Portland, the lone baker, Carlos Garcia, makes every item himself, working 14- to 16-hour nights, six days a week.

“The demand is crazy at the holidays,” Garcia’s wife, Deb, said this week. “Luckily, we have our 19-year-old son, Nick, who is a tremendous help. He does all the cleaning at the bakery, and he is learning pastry from his dad. We simply couldn’t operate the bakery without him.”

Deb Garcia said the most popular items during the holidays are “our dinner rolls. We sell four different types, in packages of six or 12 (and) at Christmas, our Danish pastries, fruit turnovers and Italian and Portuguese breads are also very popular.”

The Garcias opened Mainly Grains in the late fall of 2013. Deb Garcia said the business was her husband’s lifelong dream.

“He emigrated from Portugal to the United States at the age of 6 with his parents,” she said. “His father, grandfather and uncle were all bakers.”

Garcia said her husband’s family eventually settled in Bridgeport, Conn., where his father opened a bakery, called Berkshire Bakers. That’s where “Carlos learned the fine craft of bread baking.”

Garcia said Mainly Grains is different from other local bakeries because it focuses on providing “my husband’s specialty – authentic Portuguese rolls and bread, which aren’t found anywhere else in Maine.”

“Carlos puts his heart and soul into everything he bakes,” she said. “Baking is his true passion and calling in life. It’s a family tradition.”

In addition to the Portuguese breads, Garcia said, Mainly Grains produces other European-type and whole-grain artisanal breads, along with cookies, muffins and pastries, which are all handmade from scratch daily.

Like other local bakeries, Garcia said, Mainly Grains depends on a “very small staff,” which she called both “capable and wonderful.”

“We employ four counter clerks, three of whom live in South Portland,” she said. “They do everything from serving customers, to cleaning, to receiving and fulfilling orders. They take on extra hours during the holidays, and they work very hard to keep things running smoothly.”

The Baker’s Bench in Westbrook has been a go-to bakery for local families for Christmas goodies for the past 10 years. While Thanksgiving is still the bakery’s busiest day, Christmas comes in a close second, said manager and co-owner Diane Totman.

She said the bakery staff puts in “a lot of extra hours,” in the two weeks leading up to Christmas to ensure that all the specialty holiday orders are met.

The baking staff includes Totman’s husband, Steve, and her son, Jake, 22. Diane Totman said this time of year other family and friends also pitch in to make sure everything gets done.

As part of that effort, the Totmans will not be offering their usual soup and sandwich menu during Christmas week, something they also do to get ready for Thanksgiving each year.

Some of the most popular items for Christmas include gingerbread men, stolen bread, which is a spice bread featuring rum-soaked fruit, holiday cookies, pies and, of course, the bakery’s famous cre?me horns.

In the past 10 years, Diane Totman said, the Christmastime orders have increased each year as the friends and families of regulars also begin turning to the bakery for their own holiday goodies.

Totman said that while this time of year can be enjoyable, it’s also “very stressful, because we want to please everyone, but we simply can’t do it all.”

At the relatively new Bomb Diggity bakery in Windham, owner Dennis Strout said specialty orders flood in at this time of year, particularly for Christmas cookies, as well as pies.

To help meet the demand at the holidays, Strout said, “Everybody pitches in and helps each other. We have an outstanding team at Bomb Diggity.”

In addition to the bakery, Bomb Diggity also features a cafe? that offers a lunch menu on weekdays and a brunch menu on weekends.

Prior to moving to Windham in early winter of 2015, Strout said the company operated a wholesale bakery in Portland for five years.

“We offer traditional, gluten-free and occasionally vegan options (and) also source local ingredients wherever possible,” he said this week. “Our whole wheat is grown organically in Aroostook County and milled in Skowhegan at Maine Grains. Our coffee is from a Portland-based roastery.”

Overall, Strout said, “Our bakery and cafe is about our community, fantastic food and offering a small, quaint environment.”

At the locally owned Frosty’s Donuts in Freeport, Orianna Downs, the company’s retail manager, said, “The holidays are one of our busiest times of the year and demand is very high, especially on Christmas Eve.”

Frosty’s also has locations in Brunswick, Bath and Gardiner and while it’s most well known for its hand-cut doughnuts, customers also gobble up other baked goods, like apple fritters, cinnamon buns and twists.

In addition to its own retail bakeries, Frosty’s also provides wholesale baked goods to a variety of stores throughout southern Maine.

Downs said the company’s bakers now work out of a commercial kitchen at the former naval air base in Brunswick and said, “We have a very well-trained and efficient team of both bakers and front-of-the-house staff,” which helps the bakery keep up at this time of year.

The original Frosty’s opened on Maine Street in Brunswick in 1965. The bakery was initially owned and operated by Bob and June Frost, but since 2012 the principal owners have included husband and wife team Nels Omdal and Shelby St. Andre.

And, while doughnuts, particularly custard or jelly-filled Bismarcks, are still one of the bakery’s main draws, Downs said, “our twists are (really) our most popular item any time of the year.”

Carlos Garcia works with pastry dough at Mainly Grains Bakers in South Portland. Owning a bakery has been his lifelong dream.Pastry dough, sifters, a roller, a scale and more are put to good use at Mainly Grains Bakers in South Portland.

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