“Haitian Santa” Lionel Benjamin is coming to Florida, bringing his cheerful Abdenwèl

MIRAMAR — Lionel Benjamin recalls the holiday season of years past well. In Port-au-Prince at night, the streets glowed with strings of colorful Christmas lights, specialty lanterns called fanals and candles that sparkled through the capital’s smog. His hit song, Abdenwèl, Creole for Christmas tree, set the holiday mood too for many a reveler.

Benjamin vividly remembers the shrieks of elation from the audience during Christmas shows at the Rex Theater, as he crooned the ditty.

Touched by the ambiance, as he calls it, Benjamin vowed to never spend a Christmas outside of Haiti. But this year, the singer dubbed as the “Le Père Noël Haïtien,” French for The Haitian Santa Claus, will spend Christmas away for the second time ever. This time, due to the ongoing violence in Haiti, he said.

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