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Christmas tree at Santa\u2019s Enchanted Forest<\/p>\n
But no. Buddy Cormican, who worked at Santa\u2019s Enchanted Forest for 31 years as the attraction\u2019s manager, confirmed that the park, which dissolved its operating company last year, is over for good.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s still devastated by its fate. \u201cThis is my life,\u201d he said of his job there.<\/p>\n
MORE: Remember the TV jingle for Santa\u2019s Enchanted Forest? How the earworm happened<\/a><\/p>\n Cormican said he wasn\u2019t sure what would happen to the iconic installations, like the famous entrance with the illuminated Santa, the rainbow arch walkway, the many nativity scenes. Some, he said, were being taken to a property in northern Florida to be preserved until they find a permanent home. (Somebody call HistoryMiami.)<\/p>\n Cormican says he will especially miss the impact that Santa\u2019s Enchanted Forest had on generations of children, saying he loved that \u201call of the children of South Florida were able to see a beautiful moment in time\u201d when they came to the park.<\/p>\n The Ferris wheel at Santa\u2019s Enchanted Forest.<\/p>\n Owned and operated by the Shechtman family for 40 years, Santa\u2019s struggled to find its footing after losing its home base at Tropical Park, where it operated from 1984 through 2020, when the county ended its lease. It moved to Hialeah Park in 2021, but<\/a> the site was plagued by a lack of parking.<\/p>\n It then moved to a vacant lot on the border of Medley and Doral<\/a>, sandwiched between a quarry and the Medley landfill and just down the street from the Covanta waste-to-energy plant in 2022, where it was open for two seasons.<\/p>\n While Santa\u2019s scrambled for a new permanent home, a new Christmas-themed attraction called Christmas Wonderland moved into Tropical Park. Produced by local company Loud and Live, Christmas Wonderland begins its third year in Tropical Park this week, offering an experience that CEO Tony Albelo said they hoped would rank among other \u201cworld class holiday villages\u201d in New York and London.<\/p>\n Surfing Santa at Santa\u2019s Enchanted Forest at Hialeah Park was one of the enduring photo ops. <\/p>\n Santa\u2019s displacement by Christmas Wonderland eventually ended up in the courts. In 2023, Santa\u2018s filed a civil lawsuit against Miami-Dade County and Loud and Live alleging the bidding process was rigged and a result of backroom dealing and asking a Circuit Court judge to cancel the county permit that allowed the new attraction to operate. It also demanded Loud and Live stop marketing Christmas Wonderland as a virtual clone of Santa\u2018s. The case was eventually dismissed.<\/p>\n So as Miami rolls into the holiday season this year, Christmas Wonderland continues to tap into that sense of local pride, offering a fresh made-for-Miami experience with 305-inspired installations and holiday photo ops and even drinks that locals can get into, like last year\u2019s coquito-based cocktail. There\u2019s even a new holiday attraction popping up in Hialeah\u2019s Amelia Earhart Park<\/a>, Ripley\u2019s Believe It or Not! Christmas Park, which opens Nov. 13 and promises a blend of Ripley\u2019s oddities and holiday fun.<\/p>\n But to Cormican, the loss of Santa\u2019s Enchanted Forest is acute because going there was an experience that united generation after generation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was all about South Florida. That\u2019s all I can say,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Christmas Wonderland at Tropical Park opens its third season in Miami this week with fireworks, immersive light displays and the country\u2019s largest traveling Ferris wheel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In days long past, as the holidays drew near, people in Miami didn\u2019t dream of sugar plums or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[30204,28658,30206,123,125,124,12706,30205],"class_list":{"0":"post-46119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-buddy-cormican","9":"tag-christmas-wonderland","10":"tag-hialeah-park","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-headlines","13":"tag-miami-news","14":"tag-santa","15":"tag-tropical-park"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/9e6aca0c10ceee17cbe224fdf611ff50.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Surfing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/efb1084e5509b8aca2c39537c9caace0.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Christmas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/304b527467b08a76929529fefd47c5bc.jpeg\"\/)
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