As the Holidays roll around, we all have a few things pop into our head that usually excite us or bring about fond memories from our past traditions. While many people think that we barely even experience the Christmas season here due to our warm weather and lack of snow, I feel fortunate to have many fond memories and am working to implement some new traditions with my young family.
As children, the Christmas season was brought into full force the day after Thanksgiving by pulling out all the decorations and fixing up the house both inside and out, putting up the Christmas tree, making a Christmas tree of lights on the dock, and decorating our houseboat for the upcoming boat parade. From there, we went to all the church services each week leading up to the big day and dutifully added the cotton balls to our December calendars to eventually make up Santa’s beard and countdown the days until Santa arrived. Christmas for us wasn’t just a day, it truly was a season and each week after Thanksgiving brought something new to add to the fun and excitement for us.
Now, as an adult, I have turned from desperately wanting to see Santa into being him, and I get to ponder how I am going to make this season as exciting, fun, and meaningful for my children as it was for me. I also get to add into this a whole mix of other traditions that my wife grew up with. We have combined my family’s Christmas morning scone breakfast with her family’s Christmas Eve gumbo cooking, and our Christmas day boat rides with her Christmas night family movies. We’re lucky that we both had the tradition of reading the Cajun Night Before Christmas each year on Christmas Eve. However, my favorite new tradition is one that we started last year, and that is going to find, cut, haul home, and put up our own, live Christmas tree.
As a child, we always had the fake trees, and I was always envious of the places I went where they had real trees, and I guess that I just assumed that people just didn’t have real trees in Florida and the tree tents didn’t seem too exciting either. Then a friend of mine told me about the Strickland Christmas Tree Farm in Defuniak Springs. I was shocked to hear that it was there, but my wife and I decided to go and we adopted my friend’s tradition of the wife has to chop down the tree (smart man)! It is a fun event to go find the perfect tree, and it is even more fun with our daughter now. This year we timed it to go in the afternoon and we were able to find our tree, load it up, and then also be in Defuniak right at dark to make a loop around the lake with all of its incredible Christmas decorations. Our 21 month daughter’s eyes were lit up bright and she danced to all the Christmas music as we slowly rolled around the lake passing the horse drawn carriages and enjoying all the Christmas scenes. I believe the lights and tree finding combination will continue to be my favorite new tradition as my child gets older, and we’ll certainly find more ways to build on it and make it even more exciting.
Matt McGee, Broker, Livin' Right Real Estate
The Strickland Christmas Tree Farm: 1602 County Hwy 183 N, Defuniak Springs, FL 32433