Historic Florida Icy Wonderland

    Christmas morning arrived with more sparkle than usual. As a Florida girl, I’d never seen snow. I’d only witnessed outdoor ice when experimenting with a tray of water left out overnight on the rare occasion temperatures dipped below freezing. We would cover our plants with blankets and towels, shielding their tropical sensibilities from a frozen doom. That Christmas morning, however, I awoke an icy wonderland, and I was in heaven. 

    Ice hung from trees in icicle formations and clung to the grass below. Wherever an overnight sprinkler could reach, Jack Frost had worked his winter magic. One neighbor’s lawn was especially icy and lured us to their front door. We were a tribe of neighbor girls devoted to imaginative play, five of us girls in all. We knocked on the door, requesting permission to “skate” along their frozen grass. Our glee was likely heard from all corners of the neighborhood when they granted our Christmas request.

The image above is from an earlier freeze, in 1983, published by the Tampa Bay Times

    We slid over the uneven clumps of ice, giddy that us Florida girls were experiencing a winter wonderland holiday. My old sneaker had a hole in the bottom, freezing my big toe as I slipped across the frozen matter. 

    Later that day our crew performed the annual two-for-one Christmas production of the nativity and the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore. By then, most of the ice had melted under the warming sunlight, but the chunks we could harvest were proudly displayed on our holiday set.

    I would grow up to experience many a white Christmas, but none would be quite as exhilarating as that historic icy wonderland in Florida.