The Coffee Place's Joke Stack
"CENTRAL FLORIDA'S CHRISTMAS SEASON: THE REAL THING?"
"As the holiday season progresses, there are many people in Central Florida preparing for their annual Christmas angst. All that is needed is a transplanted Northerner and the memories of Christmas past spent where gently falling snow covered the ground with a blanket of white. For them, our semitropical Christmas is not the real thing.
The problem is that Christmas here has no identity. All of the seasonal poems, songs and movies were written with cold weather in mind. It's almost as if Florida doesn't exist during the holidays, except as a vacation destination for what seems like the entire population of the state of Pennsylvania.
In an effort to let the rest of the country know the holidays are celebrated and enjoyed in our warm climate, I have tried to identify what makes our Christmas unique.
Christmas in Central Florida is:
-Mailing cards to all your friends and relatives up North that depict Santa and his sleigh pulled by a flock of flamingos.
-Doing all your baking early, then discovering on Christmas Day that our rampant humidity has crept into all the cookies.
-Hoping it will be cold enough to light a fire in the fireplace.
-Hoping it will be warm enough to serve Christmas dinner on the patio.
-Sweating your way through Christmas eve midnight Mass because you decided to wear the new cable-knit sweater that was a gift from your wife.
-Gazing at palm trees and hibiscus through panes of glass sprayed with fake snow.
-Giving your daughter a new bike and actually being able to take her outside for her first spin around the block.
-Getting a new wet suit and flippers as gifts and trying them out in the pool that day.
-Having a house full of relatives, half of whom want the air conditioning turned up and half of whom want it turned down.
-Having to explain to your 5-year-old that Santa's sleigh can get here without there being snow on the ground.
-Having a Christmas morning round of golf and an after-dinner basketball game become family traditions.
-Opening your patio door on Christmas morning to see a glorious white heron take flight over the trees.
-Trying to figure out how to sleep and feed your brother-in-law and his family, an old college friend and her family, and Great-Uncle Harry and is new girlfriend when they all visit during the same week in December.
-Being able to take the kids to see Mickey, Shamu or E.T. during school break without spending money on air fare and hotel rooms.
-Spending the whole day stringing colored lights on the front of your house and then having to mow the lawn and trim the bushes, too.
-Finally, realizing the spirit and joy of Christmas dwell in your heart and can be triggered by warm breezes and swaying palms as well as sleigh bells and falling snow."
By Joyce Carcara, December '93, "My Word" column
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Changes were last made on 11-20-2001
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