UF Professor: Santa May Arrive By Boat Or At The Cape In Sunshine State

November 29, 2000

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Newcomers to the Sunshine State may pine for the snow and mistletoe of a northern Christmas, but Florida’s warm weather version is probably closer to the original holiday in Bethlehem, says a University of Florida professor.

“If one thinks only of icicles and the North Pole, then the terms Christmas and Florida might not seem compatible,” said Kevin McCarthy, a UF English professor. “But if one conjures up images of families celebrating the birth of Christ in religious houses of worship, lighting Advent wreaths, exchanging gifts and enjoying ethnic foods, the two definitely can go together.

“Add golf, tennis, fishing or swimming, and shorts and sunglasses instead of earmuffs and several layers of clothing — then you have the best of two worlds: the warmth of both the holiday and the sun,” he said.

In a new book “Christmas in Florida,” McCarthy describes how the holiday has been celebrated during the last 400 years in a state better known for its alligators and citrus than its turkey and eggnog.

“Florida still retains its idiosyncratic ways of celebrating the season — for example, by having Santa arrive by boat and even seaplane, instead of by sleigh,” McCarthy said. At least 25 Florida communities feature festive holiday boat parades, he said.

Perhaps Florida’s traditions began in 1539 when the first Christmas Mass in America was celebrated in what is now Tallahassee, about a half mile from today’s Capitol building, McCarthy said. Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his soldiers gathered around 12 Catholic priests who had accompanied the expedition that winter from Tampa Bay, he said.

Another important event in state history to fall on Christmas occurred in 1837, when federal troops led by Colonel and future President Zachary Taylor defeated 400 Seminoles near Lake Okeechobee in the largest and one of the most important battles of the Second Seminole War, he said.

A yuletide season during the Prohibition Era took on different spirits for many coastal residents near Daytona Beach, McCarthy said. Hundreds — possibly thousands — of boxes of contraband whiskey washed ashore from a two-masted schooner that sank in a strong storm on Christmas Day 1925, he said.

“For weeks afterward, beach goers scanned the horizon for some telltale sign that another box of whiskey was making its way towards shore,” he said.

Farther north, in Jacksonville in 1992, Christmas shoppers whose parking meters had expired were pleasantly surprised to return to their cars and find an orange slip of paper with the following poem on their windshields instead of a citation: “‘Tis the week before Christmas and all thru the city; People are shopping, so we will take pity; No tickets today — we will not cite; Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.”

“This holiday gesture of goodwill — police showing leniency to minor lawbreakers — reflects an old practice of allowing debtors to skip a payment due on Christmas Day,” he said. “I’m sure it makes some people lament the Christmas spirit doesn’t last all year long.”

In another show of generosity, officials at the Kennedy Space Center have made the shuttle landing site available, since it opened in the 1970s, for emergency landings by Santa Claus, McCarthy said. “The 15,000-foot-long, 300-foot-wide landing strip could provide a welcome haven for Santa in the event of reindeer problems or mechanical difficulties with his new, high-tech sleighs,” he said.

The post office in the unincorporated Central Florida town of Christmas on State Road 50, named for nearby Fort Christmas, gets into the holiday spirit by postmarking more than 250,000 pieces of mail each year with a special Christmas tree seal, McCarthy said. The tradition began in the 1930s, and today the post office receives mail from people across the country who want it to bear the town’s fitting postmark, he said.

“Florida incorporates its sunny Southern style into Christmas festivities,” he said. “Although the state is not known for picturesque white Christmases, countless residents and visitors have found ways to adapt holiday traditions to the waterways of South Florida, citrus groves of Central Florida, pine trees of north Florida and beaches of the Panhandle.”