Remember the TV jingle for Santa’s Enchanted Forest? How the earworm happened

Santa’s Enchanted Forest may be gone for good, but we’ll have that earworm of a TV commercial jingle in our heads forever.

Hear it now? We certainly can. And it’s about all we have left of the place.

So, how did that jingle come to be?

We have some answers.

Luis Alva of Kendall is behind the catchy tune that had graced our airwaves since 2001. The music composer, arranger and producer worked with some of Latin music’s most well-known artists including José Luis “El Puma” Rodríguez, Los Melódicos, and Los Fantasmas del Caribe.

“Music has been the grand passion of my life since I was a boy,” Alva told the Miami Herald in 2021, when Santa’s Enchanted Forest temporarily moved to Hialeah.

More than 400 songs recorded. Forty gold records, 28 platinum and 16 double platinum certifications. BMI’s 1994 Latin Songwriter of the Year in the USA. The creator of techno merengue.

Alva became known as “el Rey Midas” because everything he touched turned to gold, just like the king from Greek mythology, July Pinedo recalled in March while speaking with the successful composer on her radio show, “Señora cumbia Perú” on Peru’s Radio Nacional.

Alva was born in Chiclayo, Peru, and his musical journey began in high school. That’s where he learned to play several instruments, including his beloved saxophone.

He later moved to Lima, where he joined Los Astoria Twisters, one of the most important musical youth groups in the country at the time. He later became involved with several other renowned groups. In 1973, he became musical director for Sono Radio, Peru’s most important record label.

His career eventually took him to Venezuela, where he assumed the musical production of the famous orchestra band Los Melódicos, which had seen a decline in sales, and revived their fortunes by changing and modernizing their style of music.

He worked with many famous Venezuelan performers including Alfredo Sadel (known as “El Tenor de América”), Karolina con K, Miguel Moly, and Diveana. One of the groups he created, Los Fantasmas del Caribe (Ghosts of the Caribbean), became one of the most successful Latin groups in the ‘90s.

Los Fantasmas’ most popular songs, including their first hit “Muchacha Triste” (Sad Girl) in 1991, were composed and produced mostly by Alva. The pirate-dressed singers reached international stardom, selling millions of records and appearing on shows such as Sábado Gigante.

Alva’s career took him to Mexico and then to the United States, where he settled in South Florida with his family. In Miami, he created an all-girl, bilingual singer-dancer group called FRESH. The up-and-coming group had potential and even appeared on a Disney Channel program with Christina Aguilera, he said.

Then one day, opportunity came knocking for the group: Santa’s Enchanted Forest wanted a jingle. Alva was nervous. While he had created jingles before, this wasn’t his specialty. He created the music first. Then, the lyrics.

FRESH sings the jingle and can be seen in the theme park’s original commercials, which can be found on YouTube. Gigi Diaz, one of the girls in the group, later became a journalist, radio show host, owner of a Hialeah dance academy, and a certified life coach.

While we won’t hear the jingle on TV anymore, we can always rely on our earworm to play it over and over again in our heads.

All together now ...

This story was originally published November 12, 2025 at 5:22 AM.