Today at the Editor’s glance: On Free For Al Fridays on WNZF, host David Ayres welcomes Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly, who reviews the year and will almost certainly discuss making a bull’s eye of Target (see: “Sheriff Staly Says Target’s Ties to Shop With a Cop Irreparably Destroyed as Company’s Statements Vacillate.”) recaps the year. Roundabout Midnight: If you’re up for this (and I’m definitely not, even though my son is performing there and unlike me, he’s no Catholic) you can attend Midnight Mass at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton church at 4600 Belle Terre Pkwy in Palm Coast at–wouldn’t you know it, 5 p.m. with a pre-service, or at 11 p.m. Ave Maria, Beloved Shepherd and other goodies are on the musical program. I still remember how as a child in Beirut my parents would take my two older brothers to midnight mass but not me, declaring me–condemning me–to my grandfather’s babysitting, because I was too young. Seriously? Ever since I’ve had it in for Midnight Mass, though when I did go a couple of years back (to St. Elizabeth), the priest or one of his acolytes still had to lecture us on the evils of abortion as if it were any other day on CNN or Fox. That was it for me. I prefer my Catholicism as fallen as arches. (And yet these Christmas memories are as powerfully nostalgic as any. My parents were right. I’d have never been able to stay up even during the drive up to the church, in the hills above Beirut. They used to go to a Jesuit service: only the very best for us Lebanese Catholics. And my grandfather for all his conservatism didn’t lecture me about abortion.) We don’t want to be exclusive or discriminatory, and you know how competitive these Catholics can get: Santa Maria del Mar in Flagler Beach holds its Children’s Christmas Mass at 4, and its adult choir mass at 9 p.m. As a friend reminded me, there’s also St. Thomas Episcopal, with “Family-friendly worship with children’s pageant Christmas carols” at 5 p.m. and “Traditional worship with carols, choir, candlelight, and Communion” at 10:30 p.m. So between St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Santa Maria and St. Thomas the doubting one, you can make almost all six services in eight hours and still spend less time seated than on NFL Sundays. Alternately, this is the perfect evening for Chinese take-out and Chapter 8 of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, one of the most beautiful recollections of a German, bourgeois Christmas you’ll read anywhere. I almost forgot to add: Merry Christmas everyone. Now this:
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May 2025
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Public Workshops to Discuss Impact Fees
Friday Blue Forum
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
For the full calendar, go here.
“It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas,”
–Ronald Reagan in October 1965, quoted in Sean Wilentz, “The Age of Reagan” (2008).
Fernando Melendez says
Merry Christmas everyone and a healthy and happy New Years.
Pierre Tristam says
Merry Christmas Fernando!
Jane Gentile-Youd says
A very Merry Christmas to you and family Pierre. What would we do without you and flaglerlive? So glad Cheryl is doing great – she looks fabulous ( from one red head to another) and Luka so handsome without his braces and all grown up.. It is very comforting, as this year comes to a close, to be able to resolve and respect our differences ,and offer cheers and best wishes instead, for our future.
Pierre Tristam says
Thank you Jane, belated Happy Hanukkah, and let’s hope 2022 is not as wild as its deuces.