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Santa’s Enchanted Forest gave you holiday joy and bacon s’mores. Now it needs your name.

Santa’s Enchanted Forest has provided more than 37 magical years of Christmas lights, carnival rides and culinary marvels like deep-fried bacon s’mores.

If you have treasured your time at this seasonal Tropical Park attraction, now is the time to stand up and be counted, to give back to the wonderland that provides you with an excuse to go on an elephant-ear diet every December.

The future is uncertain for Santa’s Enchanted Forest. Its lease with Miami-Dade is up this year, and the county put the land it’s on up for bid. Alexis Mantecon, developer of The Wharf, is eyeing the property and considering big changes that do not include holiday themed “Star Wars” dioramas or Ferris wheels. (We are secretly hoping for a collab called Santa’s Enchanted Wharf, which features the best of both worlds).

Santa’s Enchanted Forest, however, wants to stay. So the holiday theme park has started a petition for fans calling for support. Santa’s doesn’t want money, just your name.

“Each year, hundreds of thousands of Miami-Dade residents visit Santa’s Enchanted Forest, including more than 30,000 underprivileged children and families that are admitted FREE,” the petition says. “As SEF’s lease with Miami-Dade County comes to an end in March 2020 and the land at Tropical Park undergoes the lengthy duration of a new solicitation process, the community is at risk of losing this beloved holiday event and over 1,000 jobs for the 2020 holiday season.”

If you can’t envision the holidays without Ferris wheel gender reveals, you know what to do.

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This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 12:05 PM.

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Connie Ogle
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle loves wine, books and the Miami Heat. Please don’t make her eat a mango.
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