December 25, 2008 and January 01, 2009 - Santa delivers to Florida, too25, 2008 and January 1, 2009 • The Suffolk Time
anta delivers
to Florida t
A make - believe Christmas story for the young ana
young at heart.
Each year we spend the cold months down in
nny Florida and look forward to having some of
it family and friends visit us during the_ Christmas
)lidaya Never did we think our visitors this year
auld include some of the newest members of our
mily — our two new great - grandchildren — but
ie day they arrived, with their older sister and. their
irents; all bright and excited to spend Christmas
ith us here in Florida.
What puzzled the older sister, Haylie, the most,
hen she saw there was no snow, was how Santa
would be able to deliver
FOCUS his presents to all the boys
and girls. As she climbed
O N into bed that first night
all she could think of was,'
NATURE "How can Santa's reindeer
by Paul pull his big sleigh full of
Stoutenburgh toys if there is no snow.
Everyone says it never
snows down here."
As she lay there trying
to go to sleep, she couldn'
help but think of Santa
getting stuck in the mud
with all those toys and
that extra weight that
Santa carries in his big
belly ... "you know how
t shakes when he. laughs ?" she thought to herself.
kbout that time her eyes were getting heavy. The
ast thing she remembered was when one of the
:wins woke her up crying.
As Haylie lay awake, another problem popped
into her head. She wondered how Santa would ever
find her brand -new little brother and sister when
they were so far away from home. This would be
the twins' first Christmas and Haylie wanted it to be
extra special for them.
Since Haylie couldn't get back to sleep with the
excitement of Christmas being only a short time away.
her little head began to think of still another problem.
Surely Santa would be carrying the wrong kind of
toys in his sleigh for children where it was so warm.
Up North the kids always looked for skis, sleighs,
ice skates, heavy jackets, gloves and things like that.
Surely they wouldn't be any good down here, where
it often gets pretty hot. This was a real problem.
It seemed to Haylie there were nothing but prob-
Y
Snowman and photo by Paul Russell Stoutenburgt
Believe It or not, this `snowman' was made oui
of sand Instead of snow, when some of our Tamil)
were visiting one Christmastime.
lems:about Christmas down here in Florida. Yet some
days she almost forgot all the problems when she and
her mom and dad went swimming in the clear, warm
waters of the Gulf. How great it was to play on the
white sandy beach that seemed to go on forever.
The truth of the matter is Haylie didn't know that,
over the years, Santa had worked out all the problems
that had worried her once he found out the children in
the South needed different kinds of toys and clothes
than those living in the colder parts of our country.
We mustn't forget Mrs. Claus, who was always sucl
a great help to Santa. She knew all about the kind
of toys boys and girls wanted down where it was
warm year round. Mrs. Claus had already explained
to Santa that those children who lived where it was
warm all year wanted beach balls, pails and shovels,
and bathing suits and sandals.
The one thing Santa had to work out that was
especially hard was the lack of snow for his sleigh
slide on. The problem was solved by the children's
dad, who was a pretty smart guy and could solve just
about anything; after all, hadn't he been working on
their house to make it bigger for all of them?
He told Santa where to get some old wheels
and how to attach them along the runners of his
sleigh. That worked out just fine. Now, instead of
leaving sleigh tracks in the snow, there would be
tire tracks in the sand wherever Santa stopped to
leave off his presents.
Another thing Haylie couldn't figure out how to
do down in Florida after a few days on the beach
was how to get sand to stick together enough to
make a snowman (or should I say sandman ?) For
days she tried to think of anything that might take
the place of a snowman like they always made up
North. Then one day when the whole family was
walking along the beach collecting shells they saw
some kids making sand castles out of wet sand. So
why couldn't they make a snowman-using wet sand
Iike the kids she saw?
But who could she get to help her — after all, to
make a sandman that wanted to look like a snowma
would be quite a job. Why not ask her mom and dad
to help? They could leave the twins in their double
stroller nearby as the rest of the family started to
work on their sand sculpture.
But they couldn't get the sand to stick together.
They'd just about get it to start looking good when
the whole thing would slip down, leaving their sand-
man nothing but a pile of wet sand.
Three times they almost had one stay together but
only for a few moments. Finally, on the fourth try, the
snowman stayed together and they thought it looked
pretty good for being made -out of sand on a hot day
on the beach in Florida.
All went well after that. Haylie got so busy she
didn't give any more thought to what Santa would b
bringing to her or the twins, or worrying about how
he would get to them.
They had a good Christmas and the time went
fast, between their new presents for the beach and
swimming every day. The time finally came for them
to head home. It was so good for them to surprise us
during the Christmas holidays and fun to see how
concerned Haylie had been about Santa getting to
visit Casey and Corey for the first time.
They had a good Christmas. We had a good Christ-
mas, and we hope you all have a wonderful Christ-
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