Other Fun Stuff

This winter holiday season, the magic of the holidays comes alive at Historic Virginia Key Beach Park as the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust proudly presents the Cookies & Cocoa Event. The park will transform into a festive wonderland for a day of joy, laughter, and community spirit on Saturday, December 16, 2023, at the Historic Virginia Key Beach Park, 4020 Virginia Beach Drive, Miami FL 33149 from 2pm to 7pm. Spread the Holiday Cheer: Santa Claus is Coming to Town: Gather the little ones for the highlight of the day – photos with Santa himself from 4PM-6PM! Bring your wish lists and capture the magic of the season in a delightful keepsake. Winter Wonderland of Fun: Immerse yourself in the holiday spirit with free games, amusement rides, and a plethora of children's activities. There's something for everyone. Sweet Treats and Warm Drinks: Indulge in the season's delights with complimentary Cookies & Cocoa. Savor the warmth and sweetness as you stroll through the park's winter wonderland. Enjoy the enchanting decorations, twinkling lights, and the magical ambiance that Historic Virginia Key Beach Park will be adorned with for this special occasion. This event is a gift to the community, bringing neighbors and families together during the most wonderful time of the year. Join us in celebrating the spirit of togetherness and joy.

Meet and Greet with Miami's Only Black Santa Claus! Santa is bringing the North Pole to the Sandrell Rivers Theater! Fantasy Theatre Factory invites you to a delightful meet and greet and holiday photo-op with Santa at Santa's Workshop; you can also enjoy a warm cup of hot chocolate with other holiday treats! Santa's Workshop doors are open to all!

This free community event is designed for families to enjoy a day of art, live musical performances, food trucks, and interactive art pop-ups!

Interlocking Dimensions: Eco-Art at the Deering Contemporary is an exhibition that is not just about environmentalism and sustainability but about reconnecting with the living world in a meaningful and emotionally satisfying way. The participating artists will help us understand the relationships that constitute how we perceive, relate, and respond to other living entities in our social and natural worlds. These artists seek to reconnect with their genuine emotions and feelings by studying the relationship between our humanity as social beings and our natural surroundings. In this way, their stance on eco-art and the message they hope to spread is that eco-art can be seen as a powerful tool for self-discovery, coexistence, and placement in the world. Artists: Andres Cabrera-Garcia, Annie Blazejack and Geddes Levenson with Laura Marsh, Barron Sherer, Briana Ortiz, Giannina Dwin with Susana Behar and Jorge Gonzalez-Graupera, Gretchen Scharnagl, Jeanne Jaffe, Lili(ana), Meg Wallace, Pangea Kali Virga, Tony Fernandez, Tori Scott. The continuous effort of artists to keep these relations at the forefront of public consciousness is evident in Interlocking Dimensions: Eco-Art at the Deering Contemporary, featuring a range of immersive, engaging, and didactic works of art created for the exhibition by several local artists and activated through workshops and other programs during the extent of the exhibition, beginning on opening day. 12:30 pm: BARRON SHERER Guided nature/art walk through Estate Etudes 2 sound installation. Smartphone and headsets needed. Meet at Main Gate 1 pm: PANGEA KALI VIRGA All Material Comes From The Earth performance. Meet in Mango Grove. 2 pm: GIANNINA DWIN, SUSANA BEHAR, JORGE GONZALEZ-GRAUPERA Cosecha performance Meet in Mango Grove 3 pm: LILI(ANA) Open Art Studio Practice: assisting in the creation of fore(st)sight Meet at the Pavilion in Mango Grove

Deering Estate is proud to present the International Media Art Festival CYFEST15: Vulnerability at Deering Estate, organized by CYLAND Media Art Lab and CYLAND Foundation Inc. The exhibition will run from December 1, 2023 – January 3, 2024, at the Deering Estate outdoor grounds and third floor of the Stone House. The opening event is on Sunday, December 10, 2023, from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Free with RSVP online. The exhibition comprises three layers—media installation, sound, and performance—that invoke technologies developed to rediscover and affect space. The Deering Estate, a historical landmark with over 450 acres of natural landscape, including eight native ecosystems, will host a series of works expanding on the festival’s theme of Vulnerability. These pieces created with CYLAND Media Art Lab engineers will be in dialogue with the historical context of the place, irrevocably connected both to the past and future, the urban and natural. This exhibition is an invitation, while following the route from one artwork to another, to take a closer look at the issue of how we are included in the world. At the Deering Estate, we featured the works of artists who closely collaborated with the CYLAND Media Art Lab. At the core of CYLAND is the creation of media art in close dialogue between artists and engineers. CYFEST 15 at the Deering Estate is designed to be placed in spaces with characteristic sensibility and meaning, such as historic buildings or natural environments. It is envisaged as a cross-disciplinary and multi-sensory exhibition that stimulates the perception of the artwork’s idea via different senses and experiences. A public presentation and performance program will take place on Sunday, December 10, 2023, in the Deering Estate’s Palm Grove and the in the Visitor Center’s theater. Children are invited to participate in the media installation "Artists Union" by Anna Frants by interacting with the drawing machines at the Visitor Center foyer from 2 to 8 pm during opening day events. This project is made possible in collaboration with the Kolodzei Art Foundation. The project's general sponsor is One Market Data. Artists: George Bagdasarov, Todd Barton, Rumore Bianco, Anthony Bisset, Bred Blondie (Gleb Glonti), Vasilii Bakanov & Andrew Strokov, Alexander Bochkov, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Sam Conran, CYLAND Audio Archive, Alexandra Dementieva, Lena Filatova, Anna Frants, Glia/Bugaev, Jonáš Gruska, Elena Gubanova & Ivan Govorkov, Alexey Grachev, A. Nigh Herndon, Sergey Komarov & Alexey Grachev, Sergey Komarov & Lydia Griaznova, Max Kuiper and Thorsten Soltau, Luke Lund, Yoshio Machida, Gustavo Matamoros, Nao Nishihara, Akira Rabelais, Thorsten Soltau, Esther & Nikolaj Søndergaard, Vasily Stepanov, Hans Tammen, Sashash Ulz, Peter Vogel, Ruslan Yusipov, Zov, and Miami's Subtropics 2023 Marathon participants (TBA). Curators: Melissa Diaz, Liliam Dominguez, Anna Frants, Gustavo Matamoros, Sergey Komarov, Lydia Griaznova

Calling all teens and ghouls! Get ready for a frightfully fun & safe night at our Halloween Party, featuring a costume contest & free food!

Day Passes to The Hive - A creative co-working space for teens open 3-8pm Monday-Friday in North Miami. We have creative tools and materials to use and daily workshops to learn new creative, life, and career skills. Our fashion and textile area has a digital embroidery machine, sewing machines, heat press, and hand tools like crochet hooks and punch needles. Our visual arts department has everything from paints, polymer clay, oil pastel, resin etc. as well as tech like iPad and Apple Pencil with Procreate illustration software. Honeycomb Studios is our production area, where students can record in our vocal booth, use our cameras, lights, and backdrops for a shoot, or produce some music on our computer or instruments. Brisas Creative Innovation Studio is the best place for STEAM and young entrepreneurship, with our 3D Printer, Cricut Cutter, and printer, the possibilities are endless. Our pilot center is open until December 15th so come by and enjoy the space!

An ultimate battle of wits and words, The Moth invites winners from previous StorySLAM competitions to vie for the title of Miami GrandSLAM Champion! On this night, listen as ten open mic storytellers share unique, unexpected, and magical true stories. About the Moth: The Moth is true stories, told live and without notes. As an organization, it celebrates the ability of stories to honor the diversity and commonality of the human experience. This curated live event features 10 storytellers who share true stories on an array of topics, creating an experience that is intimate, inspiring, captivating, theatrical, and enlightening.

ENTRELIBROS is a three-day family event where you will find a beautiful and enriching variety of illustrated books in Spanish for children and young people. We warmly welcome all individuals who wish to visit us and enjoy a program of interactive activities, as well as the opportunity to acquire books that are not often seen in South Florida, which will help us promote reading in the Spanish language and the passing of traditions and values of Hispanic culture to the new generations. Admission is Free

Centenarian Rudi Haymann shares his astonishing life, from birth in Germany, to exile at the age of 16 in British Palestine, to joining the British Intelligence Service in WWII, finding his surviving family, and settling in Chile. Based on his diary and letters from 1938-1948, his thrilling memoir, Beyond Borders: Escaping the Holocaust and Fighting the Nazis 1938 – 1948, tells a story both personal and universal, both everyman and heroic, showing one man’s commitment and courage in the fight against Nazism. Jewish participation in the Allied armies is not a well-known story, and mostly written by a third person. Rudi’s is an authentic memoir by a living veteran. His is the story of an ordinary young man, vital and driven by ideals, who is shaping his values and identity in extraordinary times. Rudi weaves personal and historic events, and reflects on war values, national struggle, idealism, allegiance, migrations, first love, and family ties, complemented with historic photographs and documents.