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Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesFrenchtown Tree Lighting Brings Community Together

Frenchtown Tree Lighting Brings Community Together

One of Frenchtown's newer citizens gets a first visit with Santa.A 28-foot tall Norfolk pine tree was lighted in Frenchtown Sunday night accompanied by a collective gasp of wonder from the happy crowd of 100 or so who witnessed the years-old ceremony.

While the tree has been the focus of Christmas in Frenchtown since the late 1940s, the feeling in the crowd was the joy of the very first time once again.

It was a night of stories, of local lore, of music, dancing, singing, and traditional foods such as ham and sweetbread. Longtime Frenchtown leader Benjamin Gagliani, Allan Richardson and Miss Carenage Christine Greaux threw the switch that lit the tree.

The evening’s speaker, longtime resident Cory Magras, harkened back to the little village where he was born, and looked ahead to the Frenchtown to come.

"Jack Shop, Side Pocket, Tris Shop, Chart House, Café Normandie, Bar Normandie, Barbary Coast, and, of course, La Belle Creole," he said, invoking a litany of well-known businesses, some still here but many gone.

His family, Beverly and Charlie Magras, ran the venerable department store La Belle Creole for years. The Frenchtown Community Center is now named for his late father.

"I remember begging Pete to turn on the baseball field lights, so we could play all night long," Magras said. "I remember walking up the hill and watching Duah Duah making fish pots, just as I remember the amazing box cheese in the big wheel by Tris, and swimming at Villa Olga."

"Just as clear as I can see all of these things," he continued, "I can hear my father’s voice leading the church choir for St. Anne’s midnight mass."

"This was Frenchtown of old, " Magras said. "Today our Frenchtown is growing and evolving. Our cultural melting pot has become wider and fuller."

Magras graduated from Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School, earned a culinary degree from Johnson and Wales University in Miami and pursued a highly successful culinary career, before returning home to continue his career at the Ritz-Carlton, which he left a couple years ago.

He now teaches at his alma mater, Sts. Peter and Paul, mentoring at risk students, teaching them culinary arts, and tutoring information technology and math, along with running his La Belle Catering, where his students get to learn hands-on and pick up a little pocket change.

Frenchtown's Christmas tree.Magras paid homage to "a voice," the voice of God, that has guided him in his career and back to his community. "This is our Frenchtown," he said, "His, mine and yours."

"So when our children are faced with uncertainty, let’s give them that voice. Let’s give them the memories that we all cherish from our childhood."

Lt. Governor Gregory Francis, accompanied by his wife Cheryl, offered closing remarks, inviting all the "really new members of Frenchtown, those under one year, to come forward and be recognized," which resulted in a slew of new moms guiding or holding infants for their moment of fame.

And then, at last and this time for Santa. But Santa had already made a first appearance. As the ceremony was getting under way, there was a sudden blare of sirens and a fire engine carrying Santa Claus drove into the square, to the surprise of master of ceremonies Henry Richardson, president of the Frenchtown Civic Organization, who wasn’t expecting him yet.

"They aren’t supposed to leave the station until we call," Richardson said, scratching his head, while somehow getting the tots to temporarily forget what they’d seen.

Santa’s second arrival (the official first arrival) was worth the wait, judging by the excited youngsters who greeted him as he handed out bags and bags of toys donated by the Committee for the Betterment of Carenage.

The ceremony was accompanied by lots of music, a diverse lot. The St. Anne’s Chapel choir was followed by Kwabena Davis and his Voices of Love, which traditionally marches in singing their spirited songs, accompanied by Kwabena’s guitar.

Jamal Williams and his Top Notch band kept things moving after the ceremony with good, old calypso’s such as "Drunk and Disorderly," while folks tapped along as they enjoyed plates of sweetbread and ham.

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