Key Carolers Make Their Rounds By Golf Cart

Staria Petersen’s elaborate holiday displays greeted carolers who came calling (Nancy Beth Jackson/Key News)

In true Key Biscayne tradition, Christmas carolers travel by golf cart although this year – as numbers swelled and blustery winds blew – cars outnumbered the carts.

“It started with four to five families the first few years. Now we have about 30 families, over a 100 people and a handful of dogs,” said Manny Rionda, who has been caroling for maybe 15 years.

Organized this year by Jamie McCaughan Tompkins and Marta Sacasa Torres through a WhatsApp chat, the group warmed up their vocal chords at the Torres home Friday evening before beginning their rounds. Each year the singers schedule stops at four or five homes, bringing Christmas cheer to the sick, the elderly or the bereaved by performing a few carols at the door. 

This year the carolers also serenaded public servants at the firehouse and police station where they dropped off gifts for the Chief Press Holiday Family Event. The firehouse looked like a flash mob scene with kids climbing over fire engines and stuffed Dalmatians and exchanging Santa Claus stocking caps for firemen’s hats. Dads waited outside in deluxe golf carts. 

The carolers wound up the evening with popcorn and gingerbread cookies at the Yacht Club that expected as many as 50 children. 

Everybody’s highlight of the evening was the stop at the Holiday Colony home of longtime Key residents John and Staria Petersen, a repeat from 2018. Mrs. Petersen, as someone observed, is “all about Christmas.” A retired floral designer, she has spent a lifetime decorating her home for the holidays each year, storing items in a warehouse off-season. 

Rionda met the Petersens in 2017 after they all had ridden out Hurricane Irma, which flooded the Petersen home. Rionda and friends put on their gloves and dragged out soggy rugs. When Christmas came around, the Petersens invited him over as a thank you. 

He couldn’t believe their Christmas extravaganza. He exclaimed ‘Oh, mygosh!” and immediately suggested the home be added on the 2018 caroling circuit. Even as he told Mrs. Petersen not to go to any trouble, he asked if by any chance the kids could do a walk-through with no-touch ground rules. She invited the whole crowd inside where they sang more songs on the patio.

Word got out that the Petersens were scheduled again this year, and twice as many turned out. No way of doing a head count, but the spacious home was chock-a-block with carolers, who again sang both outside and in.

“This boosted the whole caroling to a new level,” Rionda said before turning nostalgic. “The caroling helps tie it back to once upon a time on Key Biscayne.”