RIVER CITY JOURNAL: NOT AT HOME FOR HOLIDAYS IS DIFFERENT

Christmas in Florida is different. If you are a midwesterner who has grown accustomed to a frosty Yuletide with bare-branched trees everywhere except the living room, where a festooned evergreen snubs its nose at the frigid outdoors, then sunny Florida is a drastic change.

Here are highlights of your first-ever holiday excursion to a warm place to observe, among other things, the winter solstice:

The speed limit: Traveling on unfamiliar interstate through Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama is much like driving on interstate everywhere: Pavement is pavement. But the farther south you drive, it seems, the faster everyone around you goes. Must be an equator-gravity thing. When you got on a two-lane stretch in southern Alabama, a sports car with Alabama license plates passed you and then passed a large, four-wheel drive vehicle, which was already doing 75 mph. The young woman at the wheel of the sports car waved at the big vehicle's driver as she passed. You followed, and only after you passed did you notice the sheriff's department insignia on the big vehicle's door. You acted like kissing cousins in spite of your Missouri license plates, and the sheriff waved back. At a rest stop we saw Alabama's motto: We Dare to Defend Our Rights. Ignoring the federally mandated speed limits must be one of those cherished rights.

Boiled peanuts: Along the road in southern Alabama and into Florida you see hand-lettered signs: Boiled peanuts. You go through the Alabama town that advertises "The largest peanut boil in the world." You resist stopping at any of the roadside stands, even though they are open and selling turnips, potatoes, onions and grapefruit. And boiled peanuts. A few days later at a convenience store in Florida, you see a can of boiled peanuts. The directions clearly state: Do NOT boil. You pass up boiled peanuts. Save them for another adventure.

Seafood, boiled and fried: Your first night in Florida finds you at a highly recommended seafood restaurant. After examining the menu, you ask the waitress what she recommends. "I'm the wrong person to ask," she responds. "I don't eat fish or anything fried." One of your sons bravely orders some gumbo. It never arrives. Everyone orders some variation of shrimp. Yours is stuffed. When the waitress brings the check, you mention the missing gumbo. "Yeah, I didn't bring it because a pregnant woman just ate some and threw up." That night you get so sick your wife wonders if 911 is the right number to call. You suggest she skip the middleman and just look in the yellow pages for a mortuary.

Getting directions: In spite of your natural male tendency to drive aimlessly for hours rather than stop and ask for directions, you seek advice on several occasions in Florida. Each time, you are given familiar landmarks as reference points. Familiar to Floridians, probably, but you have never seen "the four-way intersection where they're building that new duplex." Neither have you ever been to the intersection at the foot of a bridge "where you either have to turn right or left -- but you want to just go straight." Uh-huh.

The cat's homecoming welcome: This animal was lovingly tended during your absence. When you arrived home the cat decided to defend her territory from these ingrates who go off to southern climes at the drop of a hat. Her obnoxious attitude persisted until her food dish had been empty about an hour. She suddenly transformed into an adoring, purring pet. But cats aren't fickle.

The Christmas-in-Florida experiment, on the whole, was pleasant. But it wasn't home. Holidays, you have concluded, are best spent in familiar surroundings, starting with leafless trees and frost on the windshield.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.