A passing conversation in one Florida community led to tossing out the traditional Christmas tree.  

In its place, awaits something as pure as Florida citrus, sunshine and palm trees.

"She sits tall and pretty on our waterfront,” boasts Mary Pinak, the community events manager for the City of West Palm Beach.

"We save trees and we embellish sand,” Mary will say with a grin this time of year.

Embellishing isn’t a tall order when your Christmas tree respectfully stands 35-feet-tall and has her own backstory, merchandise and coloring book.

"She has a personality as big as she is, tons and tons of fun," Mary said, with “tons” taking on special meaning. The community Christmas tree in West Palm Beach weighs in at 600 tons.

The tree known as "Sandi" is Florida's biggest Christmas tree, all made from sand.

Each holiday season, West Palm Beach doesn’t settle for a Fraser fur trucked in from up north, rather a tree-to-be trucked up from Miami.  In the center of downtown, dump trucks will spill out more sand than found on the average Florida golf course.  

Sand sculpting artists from Florida’s west coast will then go to work, creating a tree from soft white sand.

"The first Sandi was actually 400 tons. She's proudly put on 200 tons,” Mary Joked.

It takes more than 20 dump trucks from the Miami area to haul enough of the sand that will become Sandi each November.

While the tree is impressive by day, it comes alive by night. Once the sun sets, the crabs and whales sculpted into the base of Sandi begin to glow before the show really begins.

Much like a rock concert, projections and lighting effects ring in the sounds of the season.

"There are 600 pixels on top of the star,” shared Kevin Clark, Sandi’s personal lighting director.

Rocking around the Christmas tree keeps Kevin up most nights leading up to Thanksgiving and beyond.

"We came up with a custom string, about 1,000 feet long at 500 pixels,” Kevin says about the light strand embedded in the tree that he programed after midnight for several nights.  "The sculptures are able to conically wrapped the string all in one as they sculpt down the tree."

Starting nightly at 6pm, almost continuous light shows begin. That’s if Sandi emerges from her dressing room. A pretend Airstream trailer and green room is set up for human visitors to enjoy across the street from the sand sculpture.

But Sandi is not alone on stage. Several other sand sculptures depicting paparazzi and Hollywood actresses appear near Sandi.  

The entire downtown takes on a new name during Christmas: “Sandi Land.”

"We have other activities here in Sandi Land. This is her domain,” Mary said.

Do you want to build a snowman?

"They're snowmen you can dress up,” says Ariella Sevilla a little fan of Sandi. The elementary school student from the West Palm Beach area got creative in a play area at Sandi’s base where kids of all ages can dress up a flat snowman with hats, shoes and clothes, direct from a Florida wardrobe.

While the two-dimensional snowmen will not melt, the glowing mini-golf course on-site is here only for a limited time.

"There are no lights in the daytime,” says Ariella of the course that glows in festive colors at night.

“They glow up and they have little cool balls,” she concludes, mentioning the glowing golf balls in play here.

Imagine a transparent golf ball with a glow stick shoved inside.

The neon links on the waterfront are guarded by lightened flamingos and a lot of pride.

"What this is all about, is bringing the community together,” Mary said.                                                

NOTE: Sandi will be on display through New Year's Day. Yet, since she's not protected from the elements like wind and rain, the best time to see her is early in the holiday season.

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