For Cuban Boy, 6, a Christmas Outpouring Miami Adopts Child at Center of Tussle Between United States and Castro Regime

                  From news services

                  MIAMI, Dec. 24—It's going to be quite a Christmas for Elian Gonzalez.

                  While officials mull his fate, the 6-year-old Cuban boy is being showered
                  with gifts from relatives and well-wishers.

                  "We feel very happy that the boy will be able to spend Christmas in a free
                  city, and in a free country like the United States," said Lazaro Gonzalez,
                  the boy's great-uncle in Miami.

                  Elian left Cuba last month with his mother and stepfather, who drowned in
                  their attempt to reach the United States. The boy floated in the Atlantic for
                  two days before he was rescued on Thanksgiving.

                  Relatives in Miami, who have sheltered him since then, say the biggest
                  present has come from U.S. immigration officials, whose delay in making a
                  preliminary decision about his status has enabled him to stay here at least
                  through the Christmas holidays.

                  Elian's fate has become the latest battle between the United States and
                  Cuba. Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the boy's father, who lives in Cuba, says his
                  ex-wife did not get his permission to take the child and wants him back.
                  Thousands of Cubans have protested for the boy's return.

                  His relatives here are fighting to keep him in the United States, saying he
                  will have a better life.

                  This week, a group of Miami city officials, including one dressed as Santa
                  Claus, brought Elian a battery-powered purple, yellow and red dune
                  buggy, an aluminum bat and a baseball glove and ball.

                  Elian beamed as he drove the dune buggy around a small tree in the front
                  yard of his adopted home. On Wednesday, he helped his cousin
                  Marisleysis Gonzalez put up a six-foot Christmas tree.

                  "I wish my cousin was here at this moment so he could know what his son
                  was feeling when he was making that Christmas tree," Gonzalez said of
                  Elian's father. "I look forward to having him here for next year with us."

                  Elian and his father spoke by telephone today, as the family in Miami
                  prepared for the "Noche Buena," or Christmas Eve, feast.

                  Earlier, there was more excitement than they perhaps wanted when a
                  police bomb squad blew up two packages that arrived with only send.com
                  as the return address. Police discovered remnants of soaps and an
                  invitation to a spa that had been presents meant for the family.

                  "We probably just blew up somebody's Christmas present," said Miami
                  Police Lt. Bill Schwartz. "But we are in a position where we have to take
                  everything that happens on this block very, very seriously."

                  After Christmas, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is to resume
                  its work to determine who is legally fit to speak for the boy--a preliminary
                  step in the process of determining custody. The custody question is to be
                  decided in the courts.

                  Today, Elian rode his new toy around the yard of a cousin's house as two
                  large pigs--one 68 pounds and another 80 pounds--roasted on a spit.
                  After a first sample, Elian declared, "What I like is the ears."

                  He mugged for a television news camera and, at the prodding of adults,
                  said in English: "I love you, Miami."

                  Meanwhile, lawyers for a U.S. fathers' rights group have filed a legal brief
                  urging the U.S. government to return Elian to his father in Cuba.

                  Lawyer Jeffery Leving, acting for the American Coalition for Fathers and
                  Children (ACFC), filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the INS in
                  Washington and Miami on Wednesday to support Elian's father's right to
                  regain custody of his son.

                  "Fundamental principles of justice, the laws of the United States and
                  international law all call for Elian's return to his father," an ACFC statement
                  quoted the brief as saying. "The fact that Cuba may have lower economic
                  standards of living is not enough to constitute persecution."

                  "We think that there are father-child issues at work here independent of
                  political issues," ACFC chief David Roberts said. "Custody disputes can
                  often become long, drawn-out ordeals that are definitely not in the best
                  interests of children and their families."

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