Christmas in Florida, or Everything but Snowmen

The magic of Christmases past resides, at least in part, in having spent a lot more

time in churches than in shopping malls. Both my church choirs and my a cap-

pella choirs rehearsed in churches and offered multiple performances in

churches, often by candlelight. I’ll never forget my first Christmas as organist at

the Anglican Cathedral in Québec: with December 25 falling on a Saturday we

had Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the Sunday after Christmas on successive

days. In terms of sheer excess of a good thing it could be regarded as the ecclesi-

astical equivalent of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Finding a Florida church has been a challenge. During our first season here I vis-

ited every church in Cape Coral and Fort Myers that had a pipe organ, and even

spent several months singing in the choir at St. Hilary’s until the sentimentality

of the musical repertoire finally wore me down. The choir adored a particularly

sappy anthem called “In This Very Room.” As Jack Nicholson said in “As Good

As It Gets,” “I'd be the luckiest guy alive if that did it for me.”

This year I’ve been making the hour-long trek to Naples to hear a professional

choir and pipe organ under the direction of John Fenstermaker, previously at Na-

tional Cathedral in Washington and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco before set-

tling in at Trinity-by-the-Cove. Their Casavant organ was the first pipe organ in

Collier County. And how can you not love a church that purchased both a harpsi-

chord and a calliope?

Faith Presbyterian Church seems to involve virtually its entire congregation in a

walk-through nativity scene including Roman centurions, beggars, blind men, ar-

tisans and shopkeepers in addition to the usual shepherds, angels, and the holy couple.

There’s magic to be found outside church, too, if you keep your eyes open. The

Davis Art Center in Fort Myers displays twenty-one Christmas trees, creatively

decorated by local businesses and community organizations.

If Lagoon City can put on a Canada Day boat parade, Moody River isn’t far be-hind with its Christmas golf cart parade

The Edison-Ford Museum puts on a Holiday Lights display highlighting the rows of royal palms that Edison arranged to have planted along McGregor Boulevard.

The Broadway Palm dinner-theatre presents “It’s a Wonderful Life” as a musical.

And let’s not forget the ritual of revisiting all your favorite Christmas movies.

Our condo has its own Christmas display.

Tribute Concerts

In days gone by a young singer might aspire to be the next Frank Sinatra. Now it

turns out to be a lot easier to bill yourself as a Sinatra tribute act and just croon

the old tunes. An astonishing number of musicians in Southwest Florida have taken just that route, judging by the calendar for December:

16 Dec Bob Segar/Billy Joel/Cher/Lady Gaga Tribute

Elton John Tribute

17 Dec The Beatles Big Production Show

18 Dec The Eagles Tribute Band

19 Dec CSN/James Taylor/Simon & Garfunkel Tribute

Dazzling Del Rays

22 Dec Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin Show

23 Dec Billy Joel Tribute

26 Dec The Jersey Boys Tribute

27 Dec Neil Diamond Tribute

28 Dec 50s/60s with Multi Tributes

29 Dec ABBA Tribute

30 Dec The Beach Boys Tribute

Crime Prevention

A week after the San Bernardino shootings, a crime prevention officer from the

Lee County Sheriff’s Office spent an evening at the Moody River clubhouse to give

a presentation and answer questions. She described a YouTube video showing how thieves can break into your garage in six seconds or less.

The officer had barely finished explaining how to defeat the thieves’ favorite entry

method when a member of the audience raised a more pressing question: “If

someone breaks into your house, can you shoot him?” The officer responded

carefully: “The Stand Your Ground Law in the State of Florida permits you to shoot an intruder if you feel that your life is in danger.”

“Can we shoot him on the lanai?” another person asked.

“The lanai is considered to be a semi-public area,” the officer responded. “You must wait until the intruder actually penetrates the four walls of your domicile.”

“Why can’t we shoot him on the lanai so that he can’t get to the domicile?”

On television a Florida sheriff encourages everyone to get a gun. “Police may re-spond within a matter of minutes, but with a gun you can respond in seconds.”

The crime prevention officer also responded to the complaint that unrecognized

cars sometimes “piggyback” into our nominally gated community, following

closely upon another car as it uses an electronic key to raise the barrier. The of-

ficer said that when that happens to her, she stops her car—blocking the possible

intruder—then goes back to verify their identity. Considering that all Floridians

should be assumed to be carrying a weapon, I don’t think we’ll follow that prac-

tice. But we did install a peephole into our front door and remove the handle from our garage door emergency release.

Silent Night

If you were to make a list of all the things you associate with Christmas, silence

probably wouldn’t appear near the top and, depending on your level of holiday

busyness, might not make the list at all. Yet, when given instructions to wait qui-

etly for two hours while Patti attends a class, and occupying a comfortable chair

in an otherwise unoccupied lounge, my mind runs to the quiet moments of

Christmas. In truth, it requires letting go of all the sounds of Christmas—rec-

orded carols in every store and on the radio, Salvation Army volunteers ringing bells, the ubiquitous sounds of automobile traffic.

But try to imagine the original shepherds, out in the fields by night without iPods

or cellphones, or magi travelling by night to escape the desert heat. Camel bells, perhaps, but mostly silence.

My quiet times at Christmas have come in between services, when I’m the only

person in the church, or after everyone has gone to bed and I’ve settled in to read

A Christmas Carol by myself. In “Mending Wall” Robert Frost wrote, “Some-

thing there is that doesn’t love a wall.” I could write, “Something there is that

doesn’t love a quiet moment.” There always seems to be some interrupting

sound. But those rare moments of actual silence I consider to be blessed. Merry Christmas!