With everything they pack into their visit, the Fortuna
family Christmas party at French Lick Resort could adapt “The Twelve Days of
Christmas” song for their own holiday tradition here:
Ten large pizzas…
Nine kids lined up to
see Santa…
Eight gallons of ice
cream…
Seven Chinese lanterns…
Six lanes of bowling…
There’s no partridge in a pear tree. Yet, at least. The sky’s the limit for this party that grows
bigger, louder and more colorful with each passing year.
If you were visiting French Lick Resort a few weekends ago
on December 1, chances are you heard them. The ones people belting out
Christmas carols in unison as they piled off their packed trolley bus and streamed
into the West Baden Springs Hotel atrium. Chances are you saw them. The dozens
and dozens of people wearing holiday pajamas, reindeer antlers, Santa hats and wearable
Christmas lights blinking around their necks.
This all started modestly more than 10 years ago when West Baden
Springs Hotel first reopened and Paul Fortuna brought his immediate family for
a couple of get-togethers per year, including one at Christmas. Then five or
six years ago, the party ramped up. Word about the party got out, and everyone
wanted in.
“It’s an event,” Paul says with a laugh.
“Bigger and bigger each year, that’s for sure,” said Paul’s
sister, Rosemary D’Luhi. “As we talk about it, more and more people want to
come. Someone hears about it and wants to invite their friends or their family
or their sisters and brothers. It’s just a fun, fun time. We all look forward
to it every year, and we all make sure we have the days off from work.”
There are plenty of people who bring a party to French Lick
Resort. But this party might reign supreme the way they do it up big and make
themselves at home.
It starts with renting a suite — when your group has 48
people, you gotta have a party headquarters to be able to spread out. There is
a dress code for this party, and it applies whether you’re one of the 26 adults
or the 22 children: Holiday pajamas are
expected! Everyone does it! No party poopers please, as was emphasized on
the invitations Paul sent out.
Be ready to sing, too.
Before the group departed their suite at French Lick Springs
Hotel to board a trolley and see the holiday sights at West Baden Springs
Hotel, Paul posed a question to the group? “Should we light up French Lick as
we walk over there?” Light it up they did, filling the hotel with some holiday
cheer with the whole group singing “Jingle Bells” as they streamed through the
hotel corridor, down the stairs, into the lobby and out the door to board their
trolley.
First stop: to West Baden Springs Hotel, to snap a few pics
beneath the 45-foot Christmas tree and see the Dickens Carolers perform their
holiday classics.
Next stop: back to French Lick Springs Hotel for a private meet-and-greet
with Santa Claus. Then on to Pluto’s Alley for a couple games of bowling and to
chow on pizza. Then outside to see the Lights Take Flight projection light
show, and to release Chinese lanterns into the night sky for good luck, as has been their
tradition over the years.
Then it's back up to the suite to build ice cream sundaes
and settle in for a viewing of The Polar
Express movie — with an assist from the hotel’s housekeeping department, which
provides extra pillows and cushions and comforters for the kids to make into a
fort.
As Hayley Davidson, a friend of Paul’s niece and a
first-timer to this party describes the day: “It’s just a big ball of
enthusiasm.”
The best part of the day?
Lauryn picks the Christmas caroling on the trolley riding
between the hotels: “Because we’re all happy and together and we’re all bunched
and having fun,” she says.
“I like when we all get comfortable,” is Peyton’s choice for
cozying under the blankets to watch The
Polar Express. “And we all laugh, and it’s kind of like a tradition now,”
Lauryn adds. “Everybody knows the movie. It’s just fun. We all eat popcorn, and
some of us just talk the whole time instead of listening to the movie.”
And for Paul’s son Michael: “It’s probably going to see
Santa. Not just for me, but it makes me so happy to see all the littler kids be
so happy.”
They’re sure to be back next year, and some of them already
have some plans cooking. Paul’s sister Rosemary wants new Christmas slippers to
add to her ensemble — maybe the pointy green-and-red elf slippers like Paul wears.
They can’t imagine the holidays anywhere else, because
French Lick Resort has become their go-to party place. Paul rolls through the
list of other parties his family has brought here: his own 50th
birthday party, his cancer-free celebration, his father’s 80th
birthday party, his nephew’s wedding, not to mention the Christmas
extravaganzas that seem to get a little bigger each year.
“We bring everything here. This is our camp; our home away
from home,” Paul says. “My kids will grow up remembering this like I remember
New Hampshire with the cottages there as a kid. My kids are going to remember
French Lick and West Baden.”