Surfing Santas not just a passing wave for Brevard County
George Trosset Jr. wondered if his dad was drinking again. He had just gotten a phone call from George Sr. asking him to come to the beach the following morning at 9 a.m. The younger George was tasked with wearing an elf outfit while catching some early surf.
George Sr. — now founder and CFO of the organization that has become Surfing Santas — had seen an ad in which five Hondas pulled up at a beach, and surfers jumped out and hurriedly suited up as Santas for a morning surf session.
“I decided that was something I wanted to do with my son. I called the guy at the newspaper and told him I was going surfing as Santa the next day, and he said he’d send a photographer. And like the good son he is, my son showed up with his little boy, and he had an elf suit.”
That was in 2009, and the beach was Cocoa Beach, where the Trosset family lives. The inaugural Surfing Santas event was a quiet one, and by 2019 it had reached a height of 837 surfers dressed in red and white, hitting the waves. Read more
