Boca RatonAs I enjoy my first moment of down-time this week, I’m thinking about how Christmastime in Boca Raton is weird. Looking out from my pink stucco terrace toward the Atlantic Ocean on another sunny 80-degree day, I gaze at the white 10 million dollar yachts docked in the ICW…. and something flashes to catche my eye.

One of the bigger yachts, The Claire, is adorned with white icicle lights, big green wreaths with red bows, a string of mistletoe across the back deck and a Christmas tree. The only visible reminder that it’s December.

I come here in mid-December annually on business and each year the Christmas tree in the main lobby of the resort is bigger and more majestic. But it doesn’t convey Christmastime to me. It conveys decadence to me. This whole place conveys decadence and unmeasurable wealth, and during the holidays it only seems worse.

I go from finding and decorating my tree, shopping with my family for presents, and listening to Christmas music to sunny Florida, hotel air-conditioning and 5-star food. It’s all quite surreal and it yanks me right out of the Christmas spirit, right when I was starting to get into it. This is my fourth December in a row in Boca and I never get used to the weirdness.

The fact that the lobby tree is roughly 15X the size of the little 6′ tree we got for our living room, and how The Claire has more Christmas decor on its back deck than in my entire house, only magnifies my uncomfortable-ness.
I just prefer a more humble, less flashy feel to Christmas. Tomorrow morning I fly home. I can’t wait to come back to my family and my 6′ Christmas tree.