{"id":445030,"date":"2025-12-13T20:01:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T20:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/445030\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T20:01:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T20:01:52","slug":"thousands-of-kids-smile-big-at-26th-childrens-christmas-party-of-jacksonville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/445030\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of kids smile big at 26th Children\u2019s Christmas Party of Jacksonville"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 The Prime Osborn Convention Center was filled with excitement Saturday morning as thousands of children poured in for the 26th Children\u2019s Christmas Party of Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

Mayor Donna Deegan opened the event by cutting the ribbon on a bow-wrapped door. <\/p>\n

The line to get into the convention center wrapped around the parking lot. Some people waited in line for hours; arriving as early as Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Among the first inside was 11-year-old Christopher Smith and his family. Before heading off to pick out gifts, Christopher stopped for a photo with Santa Claus.<\/p>\n

Then the search was on.<\/p>\n

Smith said as he chose a smartwatch, a bubble blower and a skateboard.<\/p>\n

Smith was one of thousands of children who attended the event, which organizers said is designed to make sure children in need have something special to open on Christmas morning.<\/p>\n

Children 12 and under were eligible to receive gifts ranging from small novelty items to bikes and other wheel toys, like bikes. All distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.<\/p>\n

News4JAX employees volunteered at the event, helping hand out toys and bikes donated earlier this month to the station during the Channel 4 Toy Drive.<\/p>\n

For families like Smith, the event offers meaningful relief during a difficult year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to buy anything,\u201d Smith\u2019s grandmother, Marsha Bozich said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to buy anything. This is like the fifth year we\u2019ve come here\u2026It means a lot to people. There\u2019s people like us that just can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deegan said the need for events like this remains significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe need is great, so it\u2019s wonderful to be able to provide something like this for families who might not otherwise be able to have Christmas,\u201d Deegan said.<\/p>\n

As for Smith, he said he\u2019s already looking forward to Christmas morning \u2014 and opening his new gifts.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The Prime Osborn Convention Center was filled with excitement Saturday morning as thousands of children…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":445031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,44679,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-445030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-christmas","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115714051509958695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}