Christmas is canceled, Miami: Santa’s Enchanted Forest will not return this year
Santa’s Enchanted Forest will not be delighting visitors with its “games, food, shows, nativities” this year.
On its Instagram account, Miami’s longtime Christmas-themed amusement park announced that it won’t return for the holiday season.
“Santa’s Enchanted Forest will be closed for the 2024 season as we reflect on four magical decades of cherished memories and plans for the future,” the post read.
No information was given about whether the annual event would be back for 2025, but the post did express how grateful the team at Santa’s was for the years of support from locals. “As you celebrate the holidays this season, we hope you’ll carry with you the warmth of the memories we’ve created together. Wishing you and your loved ones abundant joy, love, and the special wonder that this time of year brings.”
This is just another blow to fans of the seasonal theme park which called Tropical Park home since 1984. After the county refused to renew its lease in 2020, Santa’s struggled to find a permanent home for its only-in-Miami holiday fun like the “Santa on a Surfboard” display and its giant tree that does a light show to reggaeton.
Santa’s popped up in Hialeah Park in 2021, but the space proved cumbersome because of parking issues. For the past two years, Santa’s Enchanted Forest has been held on a vacant lot in Medley, near the Covanta waste-to-energy plant and the Medley landfill.
And while Santa’s was wandering Miami’s northern municipalities searching for a home, a new Christmas-themed attraction called Christmas Wonderland took over the original Santa’s Enchanted space at Tropical Park.
Read More: Miami now has two competing holiday theme parks. Here’s what we think of them
“We had a vision of what we wanted, something more in line with such world class holiday villages you see at Hyde Park in London and Bryant Park in New York,” Tony Albelo, CEO of EngageLive!, the company that created the experience, told the Miami Herald last year.
Last year Santa’s Enchanted Forest filed a civil lawsuit against Miami-Dade and the company that runs Christmas Wonderland that asked a Circuit Court judge to cancel the county permit that Loud and Live has to run the for-profit event at Tropical. It also demanded Loud and Live stop marketing Christmas Wonderland as a virtual clone of Santa’s. In that suit, a judge denied a preliminary motion against Christmas Wonderland, allowing the park to open.
Christmas Wonderland is scheduled to return to Tropical Park for a second year on Nov. 14.
