Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane is an emotional return to normalcy

Saturday was the one hundred and fifth anniversary of Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane lighting ceremony and pageant, however you couldn’t fairly name the evening a celebration. It felt extra like a memorial in a vacation wonderland.

Alongside the close to mile of the cedar-lined road, there have been superb lights, kids singing and a soul-thumping procession by alumni of the John Muir Excessive Faculty drum corps. Santa and Mrs. Claus have been there, together with a tall skinny elf with curly ribbon hair who known as himself Wrinkle Jingle Jangle.

However with all the grins, the music and a crowd old-timers mentioned was the most important they’d ever seen, tears have been at all times close to the floor. Conversations faltered, voices broke. The emcee, actor Edward James Olmos, welcomed the gang with a wavering voice filled with emotion.

“You don’t have any concept, particularly after this yr that we’ve had,” mentioned Olmos, a longtime L.A. resident. “I’m crying now however I wish to thanks a lot for bringing about one of the crucial extraordinary occasions to america of America.”

Individuals have discovered to be affected person in Altadena. On this group the place complete neighborhoods have been decreased to ash and hundreds have been left homeless after one fire-frenzied evening in January, the brand new etiquette is to attend a second for the speaker to get better, as a result of they at all times do.

Pierre Dupuy, 66, a lifelong resident of Altadena, was emotional too as he waited close to the stage. He was chosen to activate the lights this yr, partly due to his longtime connection to Christmas Tree Lane, which is formally Santa Rosa Avenue. He grew up within the historic Andrew McNally dwelling just some steps from the 135 deodar cedars that line the lane; his brother André lived in the home subsequent door and on the time of the hearth, Pierre lived just a few blocks away, in an previous dwelling on North Marengo Avenue.

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1. A band plays along Santa Rosa Avenue, a.k.a. Christmas Tree Lane. 2. The colorful lights on the trees. 3. A sign states that “Santa is feeding the reindeer.”

Waiting for his cue, Dupuy’s voice repeatedly broke and resolved as he told how all three houses burned to ash on Jan. 7. “I ran for my life, with just the clothes on my back, and everything was gone in two hours and 15 minutes,” he said. But he then pointed to the deodar cedar next to where his brother’s house stood. “The house burned to the ground but this tree is still standing,” he said. “So we have something to rally around here. We still have this lane.”

Dupuy said he’s planning to rebuild and is heartened by the number of houses going up already in the community, but the grief is always present. “It’s a sadness I can’t shake; it will just overhang the place for awhile, but I’m very pleased we’re making a comeback and this,” he said, sweeping his arm toward the festival, “is a good thing to rally around right now. We need it; we need it bad.”

The festival transformed into a poignant memorial for fire victims while symbolizing community resilience.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

That need has fueled Christmas Tree Lane Assn. President Scott Wardlaw and his board all year long. Wardlaw looks like a skinny Santa Claus with long white hair and beard, but he was dressed somberly Saturday night, like a dapper Scrooge after his epiphany.

In his introduction before the tree lighting, Wardlaw said the ceremony would be a little different this year, with a minute and 19 seconds of silence, in memory of the 19 Altadenans who died in the Eaton fire and all the community has lost.

Wardlaw thanked the Disney Co. and its employees for their many quiet contributions to the festival. At least 60 Disney employees lost their homes in the Eaton fire, and the company wanted to do something to help Christmas Tree Lane without overshadowing the community traditions. Along with launching a “Disney Voluntears Village” event to help Altadena families, the company contributed a grant to purchase new equipment to repair the 15-foot strings of lights that drape the cedar trees, enough to add at least one new strand of lights to each of the 135 trees, Wardlaw said. Disney also arranged for their employees to take two-hour shifts for two days to help rebuild the new light strands.

Several people at the festival said it was the first time they’d returned to Altadena since the fire. Stephanie Gates, a former member of the 1970s R&B group, The Free Movement, grew up in Altadena and has been singing the national anthem at the festival for five years. She lives in nearby La Crescenta now and said she hasn’t been able to visit any place in the community but Mountain View Cemetery, where her mother is buried. She drove in at night, she said, so she wouldn’t have to see all that was lost.

Jim Vitale, dressed as Santa Claus, talks to Wilder Duncan.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Mark Chatham, who lives in Pasadena, roamed the festival in costume as “Wrinkle Jingle Jangle,” passing out little gifts and cheer because he wanted “to support the community that’s lost so much.”

(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)

Community support is what motivated Wrinkle Jingle Jangle, aka Mark Chatham, to wander the festival in dazzling elf regalia, passing out small gifts to children. He lives in Pasadena, but he has several friends in Altadena, three of whom “lost everything” in the fire, “so I felt it was especially necessary to attend the lighting this year, to connect with and show my support for a community that has lost so much,” he wrote in a text Sunday morning since he was mostly mobbed during the event.

Dressing up as characters is a labor of love for him — he doesn’t do this as a business, he wrote, or even as a hobby. “Social media and our current ‘tech’ way of living has removed people from connecting with one another in a grounded way,” Chatham added. “When you interact face to face you can really make an impact and difference in someone’s life. If I can spread some joy, make someone laugh, receive a hug or a shy wave from a child, it heals me as well.”

At the end of the night, making his traditional walk the whole length of Christmas Tree Lane, Wardlaw and his wife, Priscilla Brown, were absorbing some of that healing. Wardlaw’s back was aching, but he insisted on walking the mile and back, hailing the deputies and public works people keeping traffic off the street and delighting in the decorations the lane’s residents had added to their homes under a canopy of brilliant lights.

Brown grew up just a block from the lane on Barry Place, and as she walked, she admired one of the cedar trees at Santa Rosa and Barry with limbs low enough that she could climb them as a child. She used to go there to think, she said, and then she admitted this was the first time she’d been able to return to Altadena since the fire. “I didn’t want to see what was destroyed,” she said quietly. “I want to keep my memories. I thought I’d wait until they’re able to rebuild.”

Diane Pallay, center, takes part in a moment of silence before the lighting of Christmas Tree Lane’s 135 deodar cedars.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

But seeing her tree, and lane quietly ablaze with sparkling lights was making Brown smile. She fretted that her husband was hurting and hadn’t eaten that day, but Wardlaw brushed her concerns aside. Touring the Christmas Tree Lane Model Railroad Society’s elaborate display at the south end of the lane, he sat for a moment, looking with satisfaction at the crowd, talking, laughing and simply being together in this space.

This, he said, is what Christmas Tree Lane is all about. “We seem to have a shortage of joy these days. People need more joy, and we’re going to give it to them.”