Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Santamobile dashes through the streets
Cruising down the street, the 1961 red, convertible Cadillac is Christmas on wheels.
It is covered, bumper to bumper, in lights and carries an ornate, present-laden sleigh on its trunk.
A lit-up, red-nosed reindeer on the hood leads the way.
Known as the “Santamobile,” it roams Fort Lauderdale almost every night for several weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, with Santa Claus belting out holiday tunes from the back seat.
“Coming down on A1A, so many people from out of town are around getting pictures with the car, and pictures with Santa,” said Dennis Manieri, 66, owner and official driver of the Santamobile. “It just adds to the whole South Florida — Fort Lauderdale in particular — experience.”
Manieri and his wife, Armeda, 61, have been dressing up their antique car every December for about 20 years. Their neighbor, James
Flavell, joined in as the singing Santa a few years after their first ride.
The Fort Lauderdale trio typically start out on Federal Highway, where they swing by Cafe Vico. They drive through Sunrise Boulevard, stopping at The Galleria mall, then take State Road A1A to Las Olas Boulevard.
They rarely go north of Commercial Boulevard, south of the 17th Street Causeway, or west of Interstate 95. The Santamobile doesn’t exceed 30 mph.
“We’re a slow-speed, shortrange cruiser,” Dennis Manieri said. “It’s quite challenging, once that car is decorated, to drive it.”
Other popular stops on the route: Franco & Vinny’s Pizza Shack, Casablanca Cafe, Mangos Restaurant and Lounge, The Capital Grille and Yolo.
Along the way, Dennis Manieri works as the “emcee,” inviting passers-by to sing along, while his wife passes out wireless microphones.
“It’s hard to not be happy in the car,” said Armeda Manieri, who is a retired flight attendant. “It just goes back to giving, because you really are giving.”
Powered by a generator, the Santamobile has a sound system with speakers and a karaoke machine loaded with about a dozen Christmas songs, including “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
“White Christmas” is a favorite. “You can almost transform people on Las Olas to feel like they’re having this mythical white Christmas in Fort Lauderdale when you start singing that,” said Flavell, 58.
Vinny Esposito, owner of Franco & Vinny’s Pizza Shack, remembers the Santamobile ever since it started cruising two decades ago.
“It’s been coming since the first year they started ... and [it makes] you feel Christmas, because here in Florida, you don’t feel Christmas. There’s no cold, no snow,” he said.
“Every time he comes, it’s a joy, and he bring so much emotion for the customers,” added his wife, Caterina Esposito. “All the customers come out. They take pictures with Santa and the Santamobile.”
It takes the Manieris about four days to decorate the vehicle, but it’s definitely a labor of love. It all started in the mid-1990s, with one string of lights around the windshield frame.
“Antique cars have always been a hobby of mine,” said Dennis Manieri, a retired Broward College math professor who runs a food and beverage concession business. “[And] as a young child, I was always fascinated with Christmas. It’s always a wonderful time of year, and we managed to put the two together.
“The response from people was unbelievable. They were going by and clapping and cheering,” he recalled. “We were wearing Santa hats, and that was the extent of it.”
Each year, they placed more lights, decorations and garlands. They added the karaoke machine after meeting Flavell at a neighborhood function. When the couple initially recruited him to be Santa, he didn’t take it as a compliment.
“I was frankly somewhat offended. Because when you’re in your 30s, and you think you’ve kind of got it going on, the idea of becoming Santa seems a little old,” said Flavell.
That all changed during his first Santamobile ride singing as Saint Nick.
“I became Santa as soon as we went out for the first time. Dennis has put so much love into this thing that, when I got into the car, it was somewhat magical for me, personally,” said Flavell, who works in technology business development.
Since then, he said, “there’s been some moments that just are so touching that they are some of the best moments of my life. Because a little child will look at you in the eyes ... and you are Santa Claus to that child.”
During a stop at Santacon Fort Lauderdale last weekend, dozens of costumed partiers surrounded the car to add their voices to the singing. Some recorded videos and snapped selfies with their phones, while children stared, mesmerized.
“It would not be Santacon without the Santamobile,” said Matthew Shrater, one of the event’s organizers. “It has all the ingredients ... a joyful Santa, Christmas carols, Christmas lights. It just puts a smile on everyone’s faces and makes them believe for just one minute that there still is a Santa Claus.”