It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...
What does that song make you think of? Could it be cooler temperatures? Maybe snow flurries? Smells of wood burning fireplaces? Some colorful twinkling lights? Aww, yes. That's Christmas.
Well, we had the last one. There were twinkling lights and decorations everywhere! Here in Key West the Christmas festivities began at the end of November and continued through Christmas.
The decorations and lights began to spring up around Thanksgiving. And, as it became closer to Christmas Day, more and more decorations and lights were put up.
The weather varied between mid 60s to upper 80s, with almost all very sunny days. It was (and continues to be) beautiful! We were celebrating an Island Life Christmas!
Even though island life is slower than the hustle and bustle of normal days back on the mainland, there definitely was no slow down in the Christmas celebrations that took place across the island. Below I have outlined a brief calendar of the Chrsitmas events we were aware of and the activities that we did for the season. Enjoy!
24 November: Chrsitmas Tree Lighting This marked the first Christmas event that we went to. There were signs all over the island for this tree lighting at the 24° North hotel, so Orsuré and I decided to check it out. It was cute enough, definitely geared toward families with very young children. There was a long line for photos with Santa, a movie going on in the background, and a large tree all lit up and decorated.
5 December: Lighted Bike Parade We happened by this event by accident. We were driving to find a place for the night, and we passed by Bayview Park, a park near the center of the island. Baview Park was covered in hundreds of decorated and lit bicycles and bicyclists. So we had to stop. It was so amazing! From the time we arrived on Key West we had been watching more and more decorations and lights go up at this park. And this night must have been the reason why. We found photos with Santa, a child-sized Christmas village, a massive decorated tree, a menorah, music, and tons and tons of people with lights. So cool! We stuck around to watch the lighted bicycle parade begin and watched as the last bikes made their way away from the start.
8 December: Christmas Float Parade We came to learn that this event was the Christmas parade for the locals. There were homemade floats, candies being tossed out toward children and passerbys, vehicles with local celebrities and tons of singing. It was actually really cool. This parade also began at Bayview Park and continued down Duval Street, ending with a grand judging stand. One of the more memorable floats was of a giant homemade dragon with a little flashing-red nose, as if it was some sort of Rudolph. At one point during the parade I had turned to talk with Orsuré and I was pelted with a piece of hard candy. I looked toward where this candy had come from and a young girl on one of the floats started laughing hysterically. It really was funny. She hit me hard, but it seemed like that surprised her as much as it did me!
15 December: Lighted Boat Parade This parade was well publicized, and we kept seeing more and more boats docked at marinas lit up in Christmas decorations. We had all intention of going to see the Christmas Light Boat Parade, but the evening of it I ended up not feeling to well, so we called it the night a little before the parade began, missing this event. I'm sure it was great though.
16 December: Bad Santa
This event was inspired by the movie "Bad Santa". We came to learn that Key West has its very own Bad Santa. This is the "adult" version of the childhood classic sitting on Santa's lap. This all took place pool side and across the pool was playing the movie "Bad Santa." Orsuré and I were invited by a new Key West friend. We arrived toward the end of the event, but with enough time to learn that this was a really silly annual event.
20 December: Silent Disco [CANCELLED AND RESCHEDULED for the 23rd] More will be shared about this at the rescheduled date. This and the next day had 50+ mile per hour winds, making anything outside pretty difficult and dangerous.
21 December: Winter Solstice Party [CANCELLED] Similar to the night before, this dance party ended up being cancelled due to the insane weather. It, however was not rescheduled. With Chrsitmas in the Northern Hemisphere comes shorter and shorter days. Any history buff would tell you that there is no accident that Christmas is celebrated during the darkest time of the year with loads of lights to brighten everything up. So, to be true to Chrsitmas you can't ignore the Winter Solstice. Orsuré and I were all excited to celebrate the Winter Solstice this year. We were specifically going to support our good friend, Scott Gerke. He is a mover-and-shaker here in Key West. Professionally he is a DJ. We met because he has a very similar van to ShaVanda, and travels in it across the country with his work. This, the Silent Disco, and the Full Moon Party are positive community events he organized. He also was the one who invited us to the Bad Santa event, where he was hired to facilitate its smooth success.
22 December: Full Moon Experience This event happens every month at the full moon on Key West's Higgs Beach. It started off with group yoga, became a DJ'd dance party with games, limbo and dancing, and ended in positive sayings. The goal of this event is to bring the community together in a positive arts-based experience. And this month specifically was themed "Shine Bright" in honor of both Christmas lights and the song Shine Bright Like A Diamond. Orsuré and I started out the night at a pre-party of new friends, and made our way over to the beach later in the evening.
23 December: Silent Disco This event was rescheduled from the 20th. As I mentioned above, this was organized by our friend, Scott Gerke. And I quickly came to learn that Silent Discos are dance parties that do not produce any noise pollution. Here Orsuré and I were, at Key West's historic Mallory Square with headphones glowing over our ears alongside people of all ages dancing away to what any onlooker would say was silence. It was a cool event. Families with little kids and other tourists walking by saw us dancing and decided to join in because we all were having a lot of fun! What a way to bring in Christmas - celebration after celebration! (Check out the Eddy look-a-like, from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation!)
24 December: Christmas Eve Christmas Eve was a rest day for us. After the parties the two nights before, Orsuré and I took the day to rest, watch Christmas movies and listen yo Chrsitmas songs. That evening though, we decided to drive around and look at Chrsitmas lights on houses around Key West. One home in particular had caught our attention. We were driving along and looked down a side street and found a massive blow-up Santa! It was so massive that we decided to pull over and take selfies with the giant balloon Santa behind us. As we did this we noticed that this was the side of the house and in front of it sat a few elderly people, one of whom was dressed up as Santa. We walked up toward them, sharing our admiration of the Santa and they told us to go stand directly in front of the house to watch a show. I'm glad we did! What a cool animatronic show they put together with what seemed like all my childhood classic cartoon characters! Each character had their shining moment and then faded away to let another character take there place! What a cool show! I asked if they do this every year and the woman shared that they used to for over 20 years, but it had been a good 7 years since they last had put it on. She told us that her grandkids had moved back to Key West finishing up college and wanted to put the display together this year for old-time's-sake. What a treat it was for us!
25 December: Christmas Day Christmas Day! We learned from some of our local friends that many locals go to the state park beach for the day. What a fun tradition. We didn't end up joining, but took a break during the day. This was, after all, our last day at the Navy Base campground. We decided to take full advantage of that. We slept in, opened the presents and cards we had received in the morning with The Temptations' "Silent Night" playing on in the background. Opening gifts with this song playing is a tradition of Orsuré's. How cool! Later that day we tried experimenting with another new meal with our InstantPot. It was a simple, vegan spaghetti meal, but ended up being mush and not too tasty. Ha. An InstantPot mishap! Following this we got to talk with family galore, wishing Merry Christmas. We felt the love! And that night we drove downtown to wander and see what was happening along Duval Street.
It was a really relaxed and joyous Christmas time here in Key West. Orsuré and I seemed you fully take advantage of the sites and events that took place!
Merry Christmas from ShaVanda (the Francis-Siburg home) to you and yours!