Christmas is more than a postmark
This rural enclave half way between Orlando and the Atlantic Ocean has a world of attractions - natural and historical.
By DIANE DANIEL
Published March 20, 2005
CHRISTMAS - There's more than Santa Claus, a famous holiday postmark, and a year-round Christmas tree to the community of Christmas, but don't expect folks at the Orlando/Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau to tell you much about it. The first time I called I was told it was in a different county.
How can it be that Christmas stays under wraps? Probably because it doesn't have moneymaking attractions, though it does have natural, historical, and, of course, seasonal ones.
Christmas, the only place in the country with that name, is an unincorporated community 23 miles east of Orlando, and one of Orange County's few remaining rural enclaves. It's closer to the Atlantic Ocean than it is to downtown Orlando, some 25 miles west. The closest restaurants are in Titusville, 11 miles east.
Christmas was named for Fort Christmas, which was erected on Christmas Day in 1837, one of many forts built during the Second Seminole Indian War (1835-42). Most of the area's settlers had cattle ranches and orange groves; some of the current 2,211 residents spread out over 325 square miles still do. And, in what may be a Christmas miracle, there are no housing developments.
A good amount of ranchland has been sold or donated to the community, county and state for preservation. There's a wetlands park, historical park, state reserve and conservation area.
For a look at Christmas past, visit Fort Christmas Historical Park, run by the county Parks and Recreation Division. Here you find a replica of the original fort, abandoned a year after it was built, and a cluster of original homesteads, set up somewhat like Heritage Village in Largo. It hosts festivals year-round. The Fort Christmas Historical Society has done a remarkable job of helping to restore and furnish these homes. There are seven homes up, and an eighth house, schoolhouse and lunchroom are still awaiting restoration. The society also hopes to move the old post office, which now sits unoccupied on State Road 50, to the park.
A few members of the staff, including Shirley Nettles Truex, are descendants of the settlers. Truex recounted stories of the old days while sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of the 1917 Beehead Ranch House, a porch she used to play on when she was a child. "My grandfather helped build this," she said. "I've been in these homes all my life."
Truex hopes her old schoolhouse will be restored. As for the lunchroom, "my grandmother was the first paid cook." That same grandma ran a boarding house for railroad and turpentine workers, she said.
Keep going down the road and you come to Christmas future - Orlando Wetlands Park. This trailblazing "park that isn't," said wetlands analyst Mark Sees, is a 1,650-acre man-made area fed daily from a supply of 16-million gallons of highly treated, reclaimed wastewater. After its 40-day trip through the wetlands, the water is released, fit for drinking, into the nearby St. Johns River.
Except for the 18 miles of berms that can be walked or biked on by the public, the former cattle pasture is all wet. "It's an unnatural habitat mimicking a natural one," said Sees, who oversees what is officially called the Iron Bridge Easterly Wetlands and is the "world's first wetland treatment center." A 75-acre lake was created to provide fill for the berm construction and more than 2-million aquatic plants and 200,000 trees were planted to create the wetlands.
It didn't start off in 1987 with the intention of being a park, Sees said, but the community realized the potential there and opened it to the public. Because of the land-sale agreement in 1986, the park is closed from Oct. 1 to Jan. 20 for private hunting.
Birders love this peaceful place, which teems with herons, egrets, storks and all sorts of waterfowl. You also will probably see gators, otters, turtles and snakes. You can pick up a map and guide at the kiosk at the entrance to the park, where there also are restrooms and a picnic area.
While you're in the neighborhood, across the street is Seminole Ranch covering 31,000-acre recreation and 6,000-acre wildlife management areas, conserved land for hunting, hiking and biking.
A mile away is CARE, or Creating Animal Respect Education. Director Christin Burford gave me a tour of this haven for wild, nonreleasable animals, including some up-close-and-personal time with a 5-month-old Florida panther and some longer-distance viewing of an 800-pound Siberian tiger. Many of the animals are "ex-pets that shouldn't have ever been pets," Burford said. The nonprofit foundation is open to visitors on Sundays only.
If you prefer to see your wild animals in the wild, spend some time at Tosohatchee State Reserve, where you can now camp without having to hike in for 7 miles. The park recently added half-mile-long paths from an interior road to make their two back-country sites more accessible. The sites, which have a privy but no drinking water, sit among pines and palmetto brush, the kind that makes a racket when critters travel at night.
The 28,000-acre park borders 19 miles of the St. Johns River and includes swamps, marshes, pine flat woods and the rare hand fern. It has about 20 miles of drivable roads, and more for hiking and mountain biking. Except for some highway din and an occasional airboat (louder than a chorus of leaf blowers), the sounds are natural.
I spent a morning pedaling my mountain bike down the sandy service roads and saw a wealth of wildlife egrets, herons, storks, waterfowl, gators of all sizes, wild turkeys, one cute armadillo, stray cattle from a nearby farm, a fox squirrel, and a wild hog.
But alas, no reindeer. This is, after all, Christmas.
- Freelance writer Diane Daniel, a former Times staff writer, now lives in Durham, N.C.
If You GoFort Christmas Historical Park, 1300 Fort Christmas Road, Christmas, (407) 568-4149. Free admission. Open daily, winters 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., summers 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Museum-fort hours 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. The park is 2 miles north of State Road 50 (East Colonial Drive) on County Road 420 (Fort Christmas Road).
Orlando Wetlands Park, 25155 Wheeler Road, Christmas, (407) 568-1706. Free admission. Open sunrise to sunset daily. The park is on State Road 50. Turn north on Fort Christmas Road for 2.3 miles past the fort, then turn right onto Wheeler Road for 11/2 miles.
Creating Animal Respect Education Foundation, Fort Christmas Road look for sign a mile from fort, put out on Sundays, Christmas, (407) 247-8948;www.thecarefoundation.org Open 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. most Sundays. Private tours can be arranged. The Web site indicates that there was extensive damage because of last year's hurricanes but most of the damage has been cleared.