Christmas in Florida – 2018
As some of you know, my sister lives in Titusville, FL (she’s essentially a contractor for NASA), so for Christmas this year the family decided to avoid the cold and meet down there. We were off to a little bit of a rocky start because of some east coast thunderstorms delaying our flight by 3 1/2 hours, so instead of arriving at midnight, we landed at 3:30 a.m. utterly exhausted.
Day 1 - Friday
Our first day was with the siblings: me and Andrew, as well as my sister (Beverly) and her boyfriend (Richard). After sleeping in a little we made our way to Playalinda Brewing Company – Brix Project for an early lunch (complete with some much needed coffee and some much desired local beer). We took our time enjoying the food and company before we decided to see if it was warm enough to see manatees – it was not. We made our way to the Haulover Canal, and instead of manatees, we were able to watch some dolphins “show-boating” for us. Afterwards we decided to go to the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum in Winter Park near Orlando. This is a museum housing the largest collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany work (mostly stained glass). Honestly we just chose it because it sounded vaguely interesting and was fairly inexpensive. Well, the museum turned out to be more than vaguely interesting and cheaper than anticipated because we somehow managed to stumble upon their free Friday visits which included live music! I would recommend the museum to anyone looking for something to do in the area – all the art was very pretty.
After the museum we were getting hungry. After deciding the wait for Ramen was too long we settled on eating at Hawkers Asian Bistro. I don’t know if I was just the perfect level of hungry, but let me tell you the Mee Goreng I ordered was one of the best meals I’ve ever had – it was just soooo good! (I had it with shrimp, but they can leave the crustacean out if you want it vegetarian). With our bellies full we made our way towards downtown Orlando. Beverly took us to Joysticks – an arcade bar. After some cocktails and classic game playing it was time to head over to SAK comedy club. Apparently this place is where Wayne Brady started out. The show was hilarious (although I was a little disappointed that someone had brought a child to the late show so they had to keep it “PG13”).
Day 2 - Saturday
Our parents were getting into town around lunch time, so the four of us decided to just chill until they showed up. For lunch the six of us went to El Leoncito Mexican and Cuban Restaurant. Another successful restaurant choice I would recommend to anyone coming to the area. I enjoyed the ropa vieja (because who doesn’t love old clothes?) complete with caramelized plantains – mmm my mouth is watering just thinking about all the good food we’ve had (kudos to my sister on her restaurant selections!). My dad being a history buff, we decided to entertain him with a visit to Fort Christmas. It did a great job of reminding me how shitty life was in the 1800’s. We ended the day with some delicious Italian food at Portofino.
Day 3 - Sunday
Sunday turned into space appreciation day. In the morning we were lucky enough to witness a satellite launch; it was scheduled for much earlier in the week, but had conveniently been delayed until Sunday due to weather. After a quick lunch of leftovers, we made our way the Kennedy Space Center. This is basically an amusement park museum without any rides. If you are into space even a little bit, this is definitively something to check out. We started by wandering through the Rocket Garden – a collection of actual rockets and missiles. These are massive with the shortest being around 70ft tall! They had mock-up capsules for the various rockets, and even though the rocket was massive, the legroom was worse than a standard commercial flight. I am definitely too tall to be an astronaut (I couldn’t even sit without my head hitting the ceiling of the capsule!).
After the rocket garden we decided to get in line for the bus tour; this is the part that felt very amusement park-y. Is it bad that as we were driving around on the bus I spent most of my time looking for alligators instead of watching the informative video? (the space center is on a wildlife refuge after all!) My searching was not in vain, I saw not one but TWO alligators! (although I might have actually seen a 3rd set of eyeballs, but with my uncertainty I feel like I shouldn’t count it). The bus took us by the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) – I think if you used the full name, people would give you blank stares – NASA really likes their “TLAs” (Three Letter Acronyms). The VAB is mostly a boring box – but it’s an ENORMOUS boring box with large doors that essentially match the height of the building itself. The tour guide told us it’s the largest building in the world by volume and that you could fit the Statue of Liberty through it’s doors. (My sister’s office is a 6 story building adjacent to the VAB that is dwarfed in size by comparison). The bus tour ended with a stop at the Apollo/Saturn V Center – where we saw an even larger rocket broken up into the 3 stages used for the launch. Here Andrew and I were also able to touch a piece of moon rock! (or at least that’s what they told us, and who am I to doubt them). Finally we ended our Space Center visit with the Atlantis complex. Here they have the retired Space Shuttle Atlantis on display.
Day 4 - Monday (Christmas Eve)
Before arriving in Florida, my sister asked us what we wanted to do. My husband responding with “something unique to Christmas in Florida.” So Christmas Eve morning we made our way down to Cocoa Beach where we spectated the surfing Santa competition. While it was fairly crowded, and the surf wasn’t the greatest, it was still fun to cheer on all the surfers dressed in their finest Christmas garb. While we were farther south, we made sure to grab some food and wander around the Cocoa Pier before heading back to Titusville.
Now I know everyone has their own Christmas traditions; for Christmas Eve my family would always grab some fast food and go wander and look at Christmas lights. Beverly had prepped for the night by asking around for the best displays in Titusville. We were not disappointed. The biggest display being in Lantern Park. They had lined all the sidewalks with lit paper lanterns on top of their extreme Christmas decorations. I guess this is a Florida thing, but several people seemed to be out on their driveway around a fire pit – I can only assume appreciating the people appreciating their Christmas lights and just having a good time. Several people had even decked out their golf carts in Christmas lights. They were either driving people around to look at lights or simply driving to other driveway fire pit gatherings making their rounds. I wish it were warm enough back in Kansas City to try and bring this crazy custom home with us.
Day 5 - Tuesday (Christmas)
Christmas itself was mostly relaxing. I whipped up some omelettes for breakfast, we opened presents and just hung out. Andrew and I (being the money conscious people we are) decided to save some money and bought our tickets home for Christmas day – and the airport was surprisingly busy. We made it home safely without any issues – although we did come home to some vandalized Christmas lights, but the culprits were caught on video – apparently our squirrels are a bunch of scrooges! Ba-hum-bug to you too squirrels!
Total Trip Cost = $1673
*Note cost includes: airfare, food, entertainment, lodging, and boarding for our pet bird
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