Hope Shines Brightest At Holiday

By LINDSAY PETERSON lpeterson@tampatrib.com

Published: Dec 25, 2005

Bonfires lined the Mississippi River again this year to guide Papa Noel into the bayous. Lights covered the ancient oaks of City Park. Families gathered for midnight Reveillon feasts.

Propped next to a tent on a front porch, a wooden sign declares, "Merry Christmas New Orleans. I'm still here. There's no place like home."

On the first Christmas after Hurricane Katrina, much of New Orleans is covered with debris, lacking power and uninhabitable. Its future is fuzzy. But residents are proudly showing that their traditions are still alive.

The thousands who fled the city are trying to bring their traditions to new homes across the country.

Among the evacuees is a family in Riverview celebrating its first Christmas outside New Orleans. They will still share gumbo and stuffed peppers with other displaced relatives who traveled here for the holiday.

But their hope doesn't rest with keeping alive their traditions. It's in shedding their sorrows after Katrina and making a new future, creating a new home.