Dec 10: Taking a Bow

You haven't fully experienced South Florida until you've been here for the holidays. There's nothing quite like giant lighted white snowflakes mounted along Fort Lauderdale's tropical beach to make you realize you've entered some kind of alternate holiday universe. One of the real annual highlights is the event coming up this Saturday evening, December 12: the Seminole Hard Rock Winterfest Boat Parade, as it's officially called. Long name, but a fun event. For those blog readers who've not yet had the chance to experience this bit of subtropicana, allow me to paint part of the scene for you. First, think of a graceful palm tree, perhaps a Royal Palm rising 20 feet on the riverbank, green fronds draped against a light warm breeze. Now imagine that same tree lined with neat strands of colored lights, perhaps a dozen rows of lights climbing straight up from the ground to the top of the trunk with still more strands hung to outline each frond.

I think it's lovely, really. True, a tad surreal to a northern boy like me, but lovely. Now imagine many trees just like this one, lots of pretty palms with lots of pretty lights, all along the New River. Are you seeing this? In the background, somewhere behind you, music is playing. Loudly. Maybe it's a thumping version of "Jingle Bell Rock" or "Deck the Halls" or whatever. But something lively, something that sets the holiday party mood.

Ok, now here's where the fun really starts. Because there is a very upbeat, smiling crowd along the riverbank near you, folks mingling and laughing and eating among those twinkling palms. And you learn that the music is blaring from one of the megayachts tied up on the river, with invited guests onboard sipping cocktails and waving happily to the rest of us on shore. Each yacht is lined with holiday lights as well, maybe all white or maybe all blue or maybe multi-colored. And on the bow of one of them, an enormous lighted display shows Santa sitting in his sleigh wearing Bermuda shorts. Or some such wackiness. The other grand yachts have other grand and often wacky displays. Then a couple of kayakers float by and you notice that their small watercrafts also are turned out with glistening holiday lights and so are the cigarette boats and sailboats and every other kind of vessel that can float down the New River and then up the rest of the parade route on the Intracoastal Waterway. And then it begins and all of those boats form a long, long line as they slowly motor east toward the Intracoastal and the crowds are cheering and waving now. It may not be Currier and Ives exactly, but it's the holidays for sure - Fort Lauderdale style. You really have to see it to know how much fun it is.