Christmas Speech: "Your Honour the Mayor, members of the Municipal Corporation, dear friends from Madrid, good evening to you all and many thanks for allowing me to make this speech this Christmas. I greet you in the name of Madrid, the city which belongs to us all, those who are present today, and people everywhere who come with goodwill. We are all Madrid. For this reason, I feel sure that the first wish of all will be to remember, this Christmas, those who are absent: those who were taken from us on the 11th of March. Their memory beats in our hearts and makes the heartbeat of Madrid more intense, stronger and better. They will always be Madrid. We will never forget them. The children of Madrid, the hope and joy of our city, are at play with this invisible presence by their side, my friends. The little ones are the growing hope for my team and the other teams in Madrid. They are the true spirit of Christmas. It's up to us to lay before them peace and hard work, generosity and open arms, bread, home and wide horizons. It's up to us to give them challenges, and to fight for them with the spirit of Christmas, joyful to the last. It's up to us to give them, and the city of Madrid, our city, The Olympic Games. Madrid will give the games to Spain, to Europe, to the World. Each of us in their own way, let us work together: Madrid 2012 is waiting for us. Next year we will know. What we already know is that Madrid deserves the games. None that come carrying goodwill is without a welcome in our city. Madrid has a great soul and a great future; in red and white or in other colours, we all have a place as long as we seek to enlighten and never to obscure. It would be good for us all to remember again at this time of year those who have least: in the house of the needy one cannot speak of great happiness. We are lucky. We live in Madrid. It's hard to think of a better place in which to live. It's a place to love, but we often forget the city being built day by day, the city we are all building. From the world of sport, from the world of football, with the pride I have in being one more citizen of the city that belongs to us all, I wish you a Merry Christmas, Madrid".