Relevant!
And the biggest, warmest most heartfelt Merry Christmas to you and all of your loved ones. I hope you are sitting around the tree, Handel playing softly in the background either sipping on a hot cup of coffee or cold mimosa, depending on your family tradition and/or latent alcoholism. I hope you gave meaningful gifts and received some in return.
Kelly Slater, I imagine, is in Hawaii, on the North Shore, maybe surfing. Maybe thinking about surfing and I don’t want to cause him any undo stress but… I wonder if he should be in his hometown Cocoa Beach, Florida maybe shoring up his base.
Oh the 47-year-old gave us so many thrills this year, so much joy, just missing the U.S. Men’s Olympic Surf Team by a few heats. I still believe he can make it but if he doesn’t, many mainstream news cycles could pass with him unwillingly absent. What is worse, it appears that the “Surfing Santas” are primed to overtake the GOAT as Cocoa Beach’s most indelible offering.
Do you not believe?
Let’s read the pure joy emanating from all newspapers and websites today but mostly from Florida Today.
When surfer George Trosset paddled out in the big red suit in 2009, he just wanted a goofy picture with his family.
Now, 10 years after a FLORIDA TODAY photographer first snapped Trosset on the waves, dressed as Santa and flanked by his son and daughter-in-law in matching elf costumes, Cocoa Beach’s annual Surfing Santas event has become a bonafide phenomenon.
“I had no idea it would turn into this,” Trosset said, gesturing toward the buzzing crowd. “What I like to say is, Surfing Santas has become what it needs to be.”
Bigger than Kelly Slater, I suppose.
Bah humbug.