our society, in the black community, we have always honored and treasured our elders can you say that again? [speaking foreign language] >> my grandfather used to say, just keep a living. you will get old. it seems to me if we take care of our elders, we are storing up in our karma bank for ourselves so that when we reach that point , may be someone will reach down and say something nice and good about us. may be someone will respect us, and honor us, and cherish us. we also know that it is important for us to continue to instill in our babies respect and honor from family and community.

i am getting the sign over there let me just say this. kwanzaa was created out of a dying, crying need of a displaced people, lost in the wilderness. we must. [speaking foreign language] , identify, reconnect to the traditions of our greatness. that is why we celebrate this. we come from great thinkers, great scientists, great inventors. people of high moral substance. kwanzaa was created to remind us of this very thing. to remind us that we are not slaves. [speaking foreign language] >> so let it be written, so let

it be said. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. we have a treat for you before we wrap this up. it is a beautiful thing when you start early and you get cool real fast. that is the case with these children that you are about to see right now. i want to acknowledge another biggie on the front row. i caught you on the kona. i caught you on the corner, sitting up there, all in cog- negro. i want you to put your hands together for the dance troupe.

[applause] [♪] [♪]

[♪]

[♪]

[♪] [cheers and applause] [♪]

[♪] [♪]

[cheers and applause] [♪]

[♪] [♪] [cheers and applause]

[♪] [cheers and applause] >> let them remember you. let you remember your cheers. let them remember your cheers. give it up. [♪] >> give it up to them once again , once again. everyone, please stand up. everyone, please stand up. we have something else going on here. here we go.

>> president cohen? did you want to -- thank you very much, president cohen. [cheers and applause] [speaking foreign language] ladies and gentlemen. if today is not a wonderful day for celebration, i can't think of a better set looked -- a better day. thank you for coming up to celebrate on the first day of kwanzaa. i want to recognize all of our leaders that have put this thing together. thank you very much for keeping our culture. this is my nephew. he came to town to visit with us i want to say thank you. it is so good to. thank you to the village project thank you. thank you to the mayor's office of neighborhood services, and we will have a week full of

activities. please, your programs. come out in support this. it is important we come out and celebrate this collectively. thank you very much. good night. i appreciate that. most of you guys have programs. we are on our way to the museum of the african diaspora, and later on tonight at 6:00 pm, we will be at the african-american arts and culture complex with the slamming band. thank you for coming out. what we will do right now is we will go into -- [speaking foreign language] -- if we can -- can we create a circle around here? stepped closely. this is a time where we all pulled together. let's all pulled together. we can't do this without pulling together. if we can unify, we can sanctify

[laughter] let's get it. we have our elders. we are going to -- [speaking foreign language] >> listen to that. thank you to my good brother, curtis, i have known him over 20 years. we have been doing it. all right, so if you are in this room, stand close to someone, and what we are going to do is we are going to move in -- [speaking foreign language] you can release the hands of the partner near you because you will need to do a little bit of exercising. we'll be taking our fists, and we will take our hands up in the

air. we will pull our hands over our hearts, saying -- [speaking foreign language] -- and we will do it seven times is that all right with you? [speaking foreign language] all right, let's get it. [speaking foreign language] let's hold it -- [speaking foreign language] let's all pulled together. let's all pulled together, let's all pull together. [speaking foreign language] see you next time.

[speaking foreign language] as my brother would say. >> all right. we've got some holiday cheer for you. we hope you're ready.

[singing "you're a mean one, mr. grinch"]

grin [applause] >> thank you. >>.

[applause] [singing "feliz navidad"]

[applause] [singing "jingle bell rock"]

>> once again, we are business casual acapello, and we are so

excited to be here for the san francisco tree lighting ceremony. if you shoot videos or photos of us here tonight, we'd look to see us. our facebook page is bc vocals. this will be our last song tonight. we hope you have a wonderful christmas and happy holiday season. [singing "santa claus is coming to town"]

>> let's have another hand for our wonderful acapella singers. [applause] >> and now we're going to get to the musical part of our program with our overtures, three songs that you know so

well. [singing "san francisco"]

[band playing "silver bells"]

[band playing "santa claus is coming to town"]

[applause] >> thank you. now, it's my pleasure to introduce the emcee for tonight, bill bottoms. bill, where are you? >> hi, everybody. how you doing tonight? that's right. let me lead you a little bit louder. how are you all doing tonight? [cheers and applause] >> that's right. do we have some small kiddos for the show. feel free to come right up front. we're going to have some stories and personal visitors. everyone, i'm bell bottoms. they were looking for an incredibly talented host. they could only find a jewish

drag queen, so i apologize in advance. but what a wonderful city that embraces such diversity. i'm so, so proud to be here with you all. [applause] >> that's right. and apropos my division, the first number that i'm going to perform is by the queen herself, barbra streisand. [singing "jingle bells"]

>> thank you all so much. thank you so much for being here. so we have an incredible show in store for you tonight. we've got a ton of performers. who here knows someone in the show, anybody? [applause] >> there we go. we have some fans in the house. beautiful. fantastic. let me introduce you, and i want to give some special thanks tonight. so i want to give, first, some thanks to the crew that has made this entire performance

possible here at the civic center. i want to thank another planet entertainment who's helped with all of then tainment here tonight, and the sfgovtv northern nation, who have made donations for all of the toys tonight. let's give a round of applause for them. [applause] >> and who here loves to dance? anybody here loves to dance? yeah. we've got a few dancers. anybody got some moves? you've got some, little guy. got some dance moves? well, this next performance is by an incredible group of tap dancers. so this next group, the christmas tree tappers, under the direction of pam drake, the tap dancing christmas trees join us from dance ten performing arts center in

alameda. over the years, they've performed in many parades. their fifth appearance in the macy's parade on thanksgiving day 2016 featured them with the muppets. so please, welcome to the stage the christmas tree tappers.

[dance routine performed]

>> let's hear it again for the christmas tree tappers. [applause] >> weren't they fantastic? what about you, kids? did you take the tappers? yeah. so much fun, right? they brought them because they knew i couldn't dance, and they knew i needed some help. the next group is the san francisco girl's chorus. they won five grammy awards, performing at the 2009

inauguration of president barack obama. the sfgc continues to empower young women from all across the bay area with its chorus school, which trains over 250 young girls and women in vocal training each year. please welcome to the stage the san francisco girl's chorus.

[applause] chore [singing "deck the halls"]

[singing "silent night"]

[applause] >> let's hear it for the san francisco girl's chorus. hi, folks. how great were they? fantastic, don't you think? [applause] >> okay. before we go any further, i want to let jeanette know, we've found tatiana. so mom, come back stage, and we

have tatiana for you. i want to give a couple of additional things. none of this would have been possible without the civic center community benefit district, so if you could join me in a round of applause for the benefit district. thank you so much. [applause] >> and of course the office of economic and workforce development, so thank you so much for your contributions. thank you for being here. and next, i'd like to welcome to the stage rabbi sydney fran's. she represents congregation emanuel. you may or may not know, tonight is the fourth night of hanukkah. and tonight, we are going to light the menorah.

do you want to say anything? >> happy hanukkah. [the hanukkah blessing] >> and for our next number, we're going to continue the

hanukkah festivities, if you know the words, join in.ukk [singing "hanukkah, oh, hanukkah"]

>> thank you so much. thank you so very much. and for this next act that we're bringing to the stage, we're bringing some poets to the stage -- oh, and they're over here. so please welcome to the stage, a special group of poets who are going to introduce their very own selves, please, come up. >> hi. when i say america, can you say scores? >> america. america.

america. all right. you are welcoming the poets, the poet athletes of scores up here. poet athletes, what's that mean? what's that look like? well, what it looks like on every friday are these guys and 150 other kids who live in the civic center playing soccer. this is home court for america scores and these poet athletes. but tonight, they're bringing their poetry game out here, and tonight, they're going to celebrate the many traditions, the subversity that's represented in this community and this city, with a poem that we've written together. so they're getting their mics setup, but this is a poem to celebrate the many cultural and

religious practices in community. thank you, thank you for letting us believe a part of this movement here to make this space friendly for all. i should have come with my own poem, here. ro roses are red, violets are blue, so glad to see you. all right. and these -- these poets are from moscone elementary school. they're from -- they're with coach ally. can we give coach ally a hand for coming out and giving the poets and parents extra support. as well. all right. thank you ready?

america. america. america. [children reading