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A Long Beach firefighter gives a stuffed bear to six-month-old Jordynn, a patient at Miller Children’s Hospital. Photos by Brittany Woolsey<\/em><\/p>\n For 11-year-old Edgar Leyva, answering Santa’s question of what he wanted for Christmas was a simple task.<\/p>\n “I want to feel better,” Edgar said as Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus crouched over him during an annual visit on Friday at Miller Children’s Hospital, sponsored by the Long Beach Fire Department (LBFD) Kids program.<\/p>\n Fire Captain Greg Curiel said the event has been a long-standing tradition for the LBFD that the department looks forward to every year.<\/p>\n “For the last 18 years, our group has been coming to Miller Children’s Hospital with Santa and Mrs. Claus, as well as some firefighters, to bring a smile to the faces of the children here,” Curiel said. “The kids get to see Santa and we bring them gifts. A lot of them are here in the hospitals over the holidays, which is not a nice place to be. Our mission is to make them smile. Our guys who come here volunteer their time to help the kids forget about the fact that they’re in the hospital over the holidays and make them feel like they’re at home.”<\/p>\n Santa said he didn’t mind taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with the children at Miller’s.<\/p>\n “My real work doesn’t start for about five more nights, and then I’m super busy,” the jolly man said. “Today is kind of a day off for me. It’s important to visit these kids because you just look at their faces and see their smiles. How could anyone think anything else but to visit them on Christmas?”<\/p>\n {gallery}brittany\/MillersChristmas{\/gallery}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mr. and Mrs. Claus, along with LBFD firefighters, strolled the halls of Miller Children’s Hospital on Friday to pass out age-specific gifts like decorated candy canes, T-shirts and stuffed bears to children who could not be home for the holidays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":68198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1209],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-lbfd-kids","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"millers9\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/millers9.JPG\")
Mr. and Mrs. Claus, along with LBFD firefighters, strolled the halls of the hospital to pass out age-specific gifts like decorated candy canes, T-shirts and stuffed bears to children who could not be home for the holidays.<\/p>\n