Enchant Christmas St Petersburg

On Sunday, Ron and I went to St Petersburg to see Enchant Christmas, a scavenger hunt set inside a maze of over four million Christmas lights. Each year, the story behind the scavenger hunt is slightly different. This year, mischievous forest animals had stolen the magical sleigh bells that allowed Santa’s reindeer to fly. Our mission (should we choose to accept it) was to find all eight of the sleigh bells and save Christmas! At the entrance to the maze, we were given a scratch-off card with the names of the animals so that we could check them off as we found them. This was the second time we’ve been to Enchant Christmas, and I thought it was even better this year than on our first visit. I loved all the forest creatures, especially the penguin pair and the snowy owl. In the center of the maze, towering icicles surrounded a 100-foot Christmas tree.

The 40th Annual Victorian Christmas Stroll

Last Saturday, Ron and I went to the Henry B. Plant Museum in Tampa for their Victorian Christmas Stroll. During the 1880’s, Henry Plant founded the Plant System of railroads and steamships, connecting the North to southwest Florida, Key West and Cuba. Besides goods, Plant wanted to use his railroad system to bring tourists to Florida, so he built eight hotels, including the Belleview Biltmore in Clearwater. The Tampa Bay Hotel was the grandest of them all. It opened in 1891 and had 511 rooms, an indoor heated swimming pool, racetrack, casino and Florida’s first elevator. After the hotel stopped operating in 1932, it was purchased by the University of Tampa. The building, renamed Plant Hall, now houses the Henry B. Plant Museum, as well as classrooms and offices for the university.

My Favorite Souvenirs

The joy of a vacation doesn’t end when you get home. It continues in the memories of the things you saw and did, and the time spent with loved ones. One of the ways I keep those memories alive is by collecting Christmas ornaments from the places I visit. There's the Santa Claus ornament from Jamaica and the framed ornament that my sister Mary and I found in Colonial Williamsburg. This year in the Bahamas I bought a Christmas tree ornament made of wood and sea glass. They are my favorite souvenirs. Whenever I look at my tree, I am reminded of these special trips.

May your Christmas tree be full of happy memories! Merry Christmas!

clockwise from top left: ball from Savannah, Queen's guard from London, Moravian star from Cancun, Christmas tree from Nassau

Reindeer Games

This year, a new holiday festival debuted in St Petersburg – Enchant Christmas. Enchant Christmas is a scavenger hunt in a maze of Christmas lights. The goal of the scavenger hunt is to find Santa’s reindeer, who have gotten lost in an enchanted forest. Since I love anything to do with Christmas trees and Christmas lights, on Sunday night Ron and I drove down to St Petersburg to see it.

The Festival of Trees

I kicked off the Christmas season this year at The Arc Tampa Bay’s annual Festival of Trees. The Festival of Trees is the largest fundraising event of the year for The Arc Tampa Bay, a not-for-profit organization that provides services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. All proceeds from the admission tickets and Christmas tree sales go directly to supporting the special needs community. This year the event grew to include over a hundred trees, from 2-feet to 7-feet tall, decorated by local businesses, artists and families.

Christmas at Pinewood Estate

Since Mama was in town for Thanksgiving weekend, we decided to take a drive out to Lake Wales to visit Bok Tower Gardens and take the Holiday Home Tour at Pinewood Estate. Each year the estate, a 1932 Mediterranean-style mansion built by Charles Austin Buck as a winter retreat, is beautifully decorated for Christmas. Mama had never been to the Pinewood Estate before and even though Ron and I were there a couple of years ago, I was excited to see it again. A historic home plus Christmas decorations – two of my favorite things put together. :-)

Trees for Charity

While my sister Mary and I were in North Carolina this past weekend for a visit with my parents, we went to Downtown Durham to see the Christmas trees at the Triangle Christmas Tree Challenge display. The Christmas Tree Challenge is a fund raiser for non-profits. Dozens of non-profit companies compete for prizes by designing and decorating trees that represent their mission.

We discovered the trees a few years ago when we’d gone to Downtown Durham for dinner and ice skating. The trees were beautiful at night, lit up in different colors. But I think I enjoyed them even more in the daytime when I could see all the details. Each tree was so creative. The tree for Teach for America was decorated with pencils while the ornaments on Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina’s tree were made from plastic forks and spoons. We got a laugh out of the tree for First Tee of the Triangle, which had stuffed toy gophers (think Caddyshack) nestled among the golf balls and flags. Hee hee :-)

Old Florida Christmas

Sometimes it’s hard to get into the Christmas Spirit when you live in Florida and it’s 80 degrees outside. Instead of sitting around and dreaming of snow, I decided to spend an afternoon at Heritage Village in Largo to find out how Floridians celebrated Christmas in years past.

Heritage Village is a 21-acre living history museum with over two dozen of Pinellas County’s oldest structures, dating from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. The historic homes range from the 1852 McMullen-Coachman log cabin, to the tiny one-room Boyer Cottage, to the grand Victorian-style House of Seven Gables. There is also a train depot, a fire engine from 1919, a general store and even a couple of Depression-era outhouses! One of my favorite buildings was the little Safety Harbor Church, which survived two hurricanes and still has its original pulpit.

The Holiday Home Tour at Bok Tower Gardens

Bok Tower Gardens is one of Florida’s hidden gems. It sounds funny calling a 205-foot tower on top of the highest point on the Florida peninsula “hidden”, but somehow it is. Close to the busy theme parks of Orlando, it feels a million miles away.

We’d been to Bok Tower Gardens once before, but this weekend’s visit had a different purpose – to take the Holiday Home Tour at Pinewood Estate. Pinewood Estate is a Spanish-style home built in the early 1930’s as a winter retreat for Charles Austin Buck, the vice president of Bethlehem Steel. It was acquired by Bok Tower Gardens in 1970 and is now open to the public with admission to the gardens.

Christmas in the Gardens

While most of the country is shivering, we’re warm and toasty here in Florida. It’s great for the tourists going to the beach, but it doesn’t exactly feel “Christmas-y”. To get into the Christmas spirit, last night Ron and I went to see the Holiday Lights display at the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo.

The paths and trees of the park were beautifully decorated with over 750,000 lights. In keeping with the tropical gardens, many of the lights were in the shape of flowers and birds. In the wedding garden, there was a giant Christmas tree and a lighted gazebo. Who needs cold?

Christmas at the Disney World Resorts

I’m a huge fan of Christmas decorations – especially Christmas trees. So this weekend, Ron and I drove to Orlando for a tour of the Christmas decorations at the Disney World resorts. Our first stop was the Grand Floridian, Disney’s flagship hotel modeled after Florida’s grand 19th century resorts. In keeping with the hotel’s Victorian décor, the 3-story high tree was decorated with flowers, bird cages and swans. Stunning! There was even a life-sized gingerbread house with an actual candy shop inside.