As a child growing up on the Treasure
Coast in the 1960s and early ’70s, I always
had difficulty relating to popular images of
Christmas such as carolers singing in snowcovered
villages, sweater-clad ice skaters
gliding over a frozen pond or horses merrily
pulling sleighs. We simply didn’t have snow
for the holidays, and many Christmases were
warm enough to go to the beach.
The image of snow at Christmas undoubtedly
was romanticized by Nathaniel
Currier and James Merritt Ives in the 1800s
whose prints depicted such scenes and later
reaffirmed in 1942 by Irving Berlin’s White
Christmas, still the best-selling worldwide
single of all time.
In our family, we developed our own inventive
Christmas customs without snow.
The Enns children recreate the Nativity during Christmas 1966.
Because there were eight children in our family,
my mom would get us all together to recreate
the Nativity, which my dad would photograph
for their Christmas cards. As our family grew
each year, so did the number of angels and
shepherds. My oldest sister, Cater, and my oldest
brother, Chuck, were always Mary and Joseph,
and whoever was the youngest was the baby
Jesus. Our mutt, White Spot, always played the
role of the livestock.
Another holiday custom was Christmas-tree
hunting. My dad’s friend, Vinnie Gorham, had a
road construction company, so in early December
he and my dad would get a couple of Vinnie’s
trucks and they’d load our families into them, not
necessarily an easy task. Vinnie had eight kids, too.
We’d head from the Gorhams’ house in Fort
Pierce to undeveloped General Development Corp. land in Port St. Lucie. The land had once been ocean bottom
With a background that looks like snow but is really sand,
the Enns family would annually harvest their Christmas
trees in Port St. Lucie. This photo was taken about 1968.
and the pines looked like they were growing in snow when photographed. Armed with handsaws and,
in later years, chain saws, Vinnie and my dad would cut down an ample amount of young pines. Because
the young Florida sand pines were so scrawny, we’d use wire clothes hangers to bind several together to create
one decent tree. We once put as many as four together to create the tree for our living room.
We’d share the trees with other family members and friends, and one always went to my paternal grandparents,
E.R. “Putz’’ and Margaret Enns, which brings me to another custom. For some 25 years, we spent
our Christmas Eves in the living room of their little home with the big yard on Citrus Avenue in Fort Pierce,
with our brood of eight and my Uncle Eddie and Aunt Diane’s four children and my Aunt Susan and Uncle
Steve’s two.
My grandmother always decorated her house the
same: Christmas lights over the front of the house;
her little pine cone men on her bay window; egg
decorations created by my aunt and the little elf that
looked like my cousin Stephen on her tree. Christmas
Eve fare was always the same — oyster stew,
followed by the brightly frosted Christmas cookies
she had us make with her weeks before.
My grandmother would give us her gifts that
night, but before receiving them we’d all have to
give an individual performance. The performances
included reading Clement Moore’s A Visit from St.
Nicholas or a passage from the Bible, singing a carol
or playing a tune on a musical instrument, the latter
choice often sending my grandfather’s fat beagle,
Mox, howling.
My grandmother’s gifts were things she had
knitted for us, the most common being cable-knit sweaters. One year all 14 of her grandchildren received
Afghan quilts. The last Christmas we spent with her, in 1983, she had knitted Christmas stockings with our
names on them, even though most of us were grown.
We knew that Christmas would be her last. My grandfather had died
in April and my grandmother in the months before Christmas had been
diagnosed with leukemia. Her illness had progressed to the point that
she was spending most of her time in bed. But somehow she rallied
to come to the living room that last Christmas Eve. We had no performances
from the kids that night — maybe just a reading
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Publisher & Editor
Gregory Enns
772.940.9005
enns@indianrivermag.com
Associate Publisher
Allen Osteen
Assistant to the Publisher
Lauren Shott
Design Editor
Michelle Moore-Burney
Associate Editor
Judith Collins
Copy Editors
Pattie Durham, Gaettane A. Paul
Writers
Susan Burgess, Donna Crary,
Rick Crary, Rachel Cuccurullo,
Wendy Dwyer, Kerry Firth,
Ellen Gillette, Janie Gould,
Mary Ann Koenig, Alison O’Leary,
Danielle Rose, Anthony Westbury,
Bernie Woodall, Gregory Enns
Cover Photo
Mally Chrulski
Photographers
Robert Adams, Rusty Durham,
Anthony Inswasty, MaryAnn Ketcham,
Liz McKinley, Gregory Enns
Digital and Social Media Editor
Deborah Maldonado
Advertising Representatives
Sunny Gates
772.204.5043
sunny@indianrivermag.com
Jim McCabe
917.912.0040
jim@indianrivermedia.com
Shelby Shea
443.373.9174
shelby@indianrivermedia.com
Distribution
Wes Holloway
To Reach Our Office
772.466.3346 or
office@indianrivermag.com
Our Motto
‘We fly our own mission’
— Ed Drondoski, Founding Photographer
To Subscribe
Visit IndianRiverStore.com
or send $20 check with
recipient’s mailing address to
Indian River, 308 Ave. A,
Fort Pierce, FL 34950
All address changes must be made in
writing to the above address or by
e-mailing subscribe@indianrivermag.com
On the Web
www.indianrivermagazine.com
Indian River Magazine is published by
the Indian River Media Group, a locally
owned company based at 308 Ave. A
in Fort Pierce, FL 34950. Indian River
magazine publishes five times a year:
early October, late November, mid-
January, early March and early May. All
material contained herein is copyrighted
by the Indian River Media Group.
A Florida Christmas to remember
CONTINUES ON PAGE 94 >>
4
Signatures:Signatures 2/25/13 4:25 PM Page The Enns children in 1970 gather in their grandparents’
living room in Fort Pierce, a 25-year tradition.
Reach Publisher Gregory Enns at
enns@indianrivermedia.com or 772.940.9005
/indianriverstore.com
/indianrivermagazine.com
/IndianRiverStore.com
/www.indianrivermagazine.com
link
link
link
link
link
link
link