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Christmas time in Tampa is much different that Christmas’s were in Indiana, Chicago, or even South Carolina, the latter of which did not get celebrated too much as Mom and Dad often travelled to us kids and did not decorate much. Here in Tampa, it is easy to get on the roof to put up lights without worrying about slipping on the ice and having an accident.
Here, there are entire neighborhoods that compete to have the most “Griswald” like house. Teresa and I are not like that. We do like our lights, but not that much. I get ideas for those displays, like draping light strings from tree to tree. But this is not about our house.
One of the places we’ve discovered in St Pete is the “Enchant” display at Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays (yeah sports!). Here they put up lights in a glorious display, millions of them. There is a large lit tree in the center and each year has a theme. This years was woodland creatures.
The event is set up like a maze and there is always a challenge for the kids and adults alike, navigate the maze, find the elements of Christmas, and collect all the clues. The event is family friendly and this year, we brought my mom.
Mom has been doing well. She is in assisted living not far from us. We can check her out for trips and this was one we hoped she would like. We picked her up and drove to St Pete. As part of the crowd control, you have entry times and ours was 5pm on this Saturday. What I did not realize was that it started at 5pm, which was a bonus for us as parking was not near as bad as I had expected.
As I said, there are millions of lights and these are making up the maze, the creatures, the effects, the tree and surrounding the ice skating rink and the dance floor. There is food and drinks (including adults beverages). We got mom through the gate and into the trop itself.
This place is huge. The challenge this year was to find all the Christmas balls taken and spirited away by the Christmas creatures. We opted not to do the challenge, but just to explore.
Still being early, it was not as crowded or noisy. Mom has issues of hearing and I’ve found that in crowds, I do too. We managed though. We started our way around and found the panther first. We stopped to admire the artistry and then went on until we found the fox. We went through the arched tunnel and mom asked way I don’t do this in our yard. I told her I don’t hav the time or patience, though the truth is, I’ve thought about it.
Wine was found next and soon after, the ice skating rink. I asked mom if she wanted to try and of course, she said no. She recognizes her limitations and I am happy of that.
It did not matter where we traveled in the maze, the tree was alway in the center. I cannot tell you how tall it was, but WOW it is and mom commented on it more than once. A few more woodland creatures and we found the DJ and the dance floor. I talked mom into at least getting up on it and was grateful for the ramp provided. We danced for a bit as she tapped her feat on the squares and changed the colors of the squares.
As we exited he maze, we went into the Christmas Village shops. These were small stalls with local artisans selling trinkets, vacations, and food. At one stall, they were passing out sample of their brittle. Now I usually find brittle hard or gummy and tend not to like it, but this place called Psalms Gourmet Brittle was fantastic. We tried most of their flavors from Peanut to Cashew to Pecan and bought the latter. Definitely would recommend it.
So, sometimes trips are just down the road, in or about your neighborhood and with family. Don’t miss out on those.
