Local officials, residents share Christmas memories

 
 

FATHER/SON HOLIDAY MEMORIES: Miami Springs Mayor Zavier Garcia recalled the last Christmas he spent with his father in 1994. This photo of he and his father (left) sitting together on that Christmas Day is on the wall next to his dining room table. "I reminds our family to love and appreciate each other every day, especially during the holidays because we never know when it may be our last," said Garcia.
FATHER/SON HOLIDAY MEMORIES: Miami Springs Mayor Zavier Garcia recalled the last Christmas he spent with his father in 1994. This photo of he and his father (left) sitting together on that Christmas Day is on the wall next to his dining room table. "I reminds our family to love and appreciate each other every day, especially during the holidays because we never know when it may be our last," said Garcia.
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River Cities Gazette

    Part of the wonder of Christmas comes with the sights, sounds and smells of the season. Christmas is also a time when people tend to remember past holidays spent with loved ones. Christmas allows us to relive the magical moments of our favorite Christmas memories: freshly fallen snow, baking homemade cookies with Grandma, driving through neighborhoods in search of the brightest Christmas lights, midnight Mass, and singing Christmas carols.

    It always warms the heart to hear “O Come Let us Adore Him, Christ the Lord”, “Joy to the World, the Lord is Come” and “O Holy Night-When Christ Was Born.”

    I don’t think there’s any question that Christmas — the word — means different things to different people. To many people, it’s a holiday when they don’t have to go to work or school. To many others, the Christmas season is trying to find the perfect gift for family and friends.

    Christmas trees, lights, presents, jingle bells and candy canes all play their part within this festive season, while all but forgetting its true meaning.

    Christmas will always be that time when the family gathers, the time when differences are put aside and the time when we commemorate Jesus’ birth.

    With that baby came a message of love, hope and salvation for all people everywhere.

    What is your favorite Christmas memory? Take a few moments and relive the magic.

    • City Manager Ron Gorland: “I was raised here (born in a Miami Beach hospital as most of my local generation was), and all my childhood Christmas memories are from Miami Springs. It was my family tradition to go out in the car Christmas Eve and check out all the lights — and my favorite light shows were the homes on the Bass Lakes that lit up both the front and back of their homes. While we were light-seeing Santa came, so we knew when we got home he would have already been there. One year I got a Cub Scout flashlight and for months used it to read books under the covers when I was supposed to be asleep.

     Another time my family got an American Flyer model train but we weren’t allowed to use it unless my father was there, but he often worked three jobs (he worked in the local Miami Springs post office), so we rarely got to play with the train. Another time I got a 26-inch bike (so I could grow into it), but I was far too young to get on and get off it, so I learned to launch it from a concrete block in the front yard and to get off it by stopping next to a telephone pole I could lean on.

    “For sure Christmas in the ’50s was more about family, friends, fun and food than it was about getting things — we all got one main gift (toy) and then necessities like socks, etc. Truthfully, all my Christmases were great — I don’t ever remember having a bad one as a kid. Later, though, my worst Christmas ever was as a young officer candidate. I had to stand guard on the outside perimeter of an isolated empty building in the middle of nowhere in the woods in 4 hours on/4 hours off shifts through the Christmas holidays at Fort Knox. The nights were long, very dark, lonely and cold, but I had plenty of good childhood Christmas memories to get me through that Christmas.”

Read more River Cities stories from the Miami Herald

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TRIBUTE: As she has done many times in the past, Mary Anne Goodlett-Taylor will read the names of Miami Springs servicemen who died in the line of duty at a Memorial Day ceremony just off the Circle on Monday morning.

    Memorial Day Ceremony planned for Miami Springs on Monday

    For the 25th consecutive year, Memorial Day will be recognized and honored in Miami Springs. This Monday morning, the John Macdonald Chapter of the Daugthers of the American Revolution (DAR) will hold a ceremony beginning at 9:30 a.m. at the World War II monument next to the Circle.

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NEW BOSS: Father Jose N. Alfaro took over a few weeks ago as the new Pastor at Blessed Trinity Catholic Church and School and will hold his first mass on June 2.

    Blessed Trinity gets its new Pastor

    Since the passing of long-time Blessed Trinity Pastor Father Edward Carney last January, BTS has been awaiting the arrival of a new Pastor and and got it a few weeks ago when Father Jose N. Alfaro was named the new head of the parish. Alfaro will conduct his first mass at his new home on Sunday, June 2.

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CARPOOLING:  (From left) Chris Mendez (MSSH class of 2006, chauffeuring his friends), Daisy Martinez, Yaniet Sosa, Laisy Sosa (not related), Christine Yanes and Luis Galarce to the annual Miami Springs High School prom.

    Miami Springs Golden Hawks enjoy "Prom Night, 2013"

    It was a big night last Saturday, May 18 when Miami Springs Senior High School held its annual "Prom Night" as Golden Hawk couples converged on the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami Beach for an evening of dress-up and fun.

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