On Saturday, December 3^rd, the historic downtown Homestead district was transformed to celebrate the holidays, decorated into a festive winter wonderland for the traditional tree lighting ceremony held at Losner Park. This year’s celebration held a variety of events open to the community to partake in like sledding, snowball target practice, showing off ugly sweaters, story time with the Cybrarium, a photobooth with Santa, and ornament decorating

Throughout the evening several performances were showcased on stage, such as singing, dancing, and musical performances including South Dade’s jazz band. “Doing events like this gives us exposure inside the community and not just a group that stays inside South Dade and plays, hopefully we can get more opportunities to do more events like this,” said band director Scott Davis.

In addition, Krome Avenue closed for an array of food trucks to park along the road for guests to enjoy. Foldable tables and chairs were set up in the middle of the street for a place to sit while eating. And kids filled the playground for fun. “This event was really nice, I helped with the ornament decorating and I think the tree lighting was super cute and the performances were good,” said community service Mayors Youth Council Member Miranda Cruz.

Wanting to bring more to Homestead the Mayor and Council wanted to give residents something to do, such as this. “A big thing that I know they want to do is give back free events to the community to enjoy,” said event emcee Josh Padgett. “People don’t want to have to drive all the way up the turnpike to Miami all the time or Kendall to go out to do things, they want to try and stay local.”