FLORIDIAN TWIST TO THE HOLIDAY SEASON
CALL
772.940.9005
SEND AN EMAIL
enns@spacecoastliving.com
JESSE KISTER
Space Coast Living photographer Jason Hook gets
down low to get the perfect shot of Santa Claus.
Signatures:Signatures 2/25/13 4:25 PM Page 1
Gregory Enns
Associate FOLLOW US
PUBLISHER'S LETTER
HOLIDAY 2022
or the uninitiated, celebrating Christmas in Florida is
a lot different than celebrating it in northern climes.
Instead of sleigh rides and strolls through snowcovered
villages, we have things like boat parades and
surfing Santas.
As Sue DeWerff writes in Hanging with the Santas Page 26,
Surfing Santas “brings the magic of the holidays to Cocoa
Beach as surfers share the waves while spectators enjoy the
action and participate in multiple activities surrounding the
annual family-friendly event.’’
The event has raised more than $100,000 for two local nonprofit organizations, the Florida Surf Museum
and Grind for Life, a local charity benefiting people with cancer.
Sue also profiles Brevard’s own Santa, Willard Davis, in No Pause for Claus, beginning on Page 17. Willard
began donning the red suit 39 years ago and has been doing it ever since. In shooting Santa for our cover,
photographer Jason Hook had an unusual request: could he meet him at Indialantic Boardwalk and
Seashore at sunrise?
“When approaching this cover of Santa, I wanted to do something different
than the classic Santa photos you see,” Jason said. “I wanted to give it a
Florida spin, so what better place than our beaches. I wanted the cover
to have vibrant colors and the best time to do that would be sunrise at
the beach. My original intent for the photo failed to happen when certain
props we intended to use couldn’t make it onto the beach. So we started
trying different things. Then, when I saw Santa, standing with his bag of
toys with the sun behind him, I quickly shifted gears, and changed the
lighting to turn him into an almost superhero-like figure. My inner child
came out, and I knew that was it. In my imagination, Santa was arriving
just in the Nick of time at dawn to deliver the toys to the kids of Florida.”
Also in this issue, we hope you’ll shop local this holiday season and
perhaps you might find something of interest in our annual Holiday
Gift Guide Page 34.
Besides celebrating the holiday season, this issue also celebrates the annual start of “the season” on the
Space Coast. As we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we hope you’ll start showing support for our
local theaters and live shows and find several to attend. Just check out Sounds of Music on Page 52. Or visit
one of the art shows featured in Works in Progress on Page 62.
You can also take a stroll, beginning on Page 42, through Adelaide, a premier luxury community in Viera
with a rich ranch history.
And finally, we hope you enjoy our Moments in Space department
that we began with our summer issue. In this installment
on Page 66, space writer Lucinda Coulter recounts how
NASA’s Spacelab program with the European Space Agency
charted the course for the International Space Station.
Have a great holiday season and see you in the new year!
6: SPACE COAST LIVING | SPACECOASTLIVING.COM
LET’S TALK
spacecoastliving #scliving spacecoast_living_mag
F
Willard Davis met Hook for an
early morning photo shoot.
/SPACECOASTLIVING.COM
link