For many families in Los Angeles County’s Altadena neighborhood, Christmas will look different this year. The Eaton Fire tore through the area in January, destroying nearly 9,500 buildings — including homes and churches. But as residents continue rebuilding their lives, a cherished, 105-year-old holiday tradition has emerged unscathed.
Christmas Tree Lane is a magical stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue that’s lined with 135 deodar cedars, and every winter, volunteers decorate the trees with thousands of colorful lights. It initially wasn’t clear if the custom would come together in 2025, but the display, which is nearly a mile long, returned even brighter than before, boasting over 20,000 lights. They were turned on at a Dec. 6 lighting ceremony and will remain lit until Jan. 7, the first anniversary of the fire starting.
“This year was special,” Mikayla Arevalo, volunteers coordinator and communications director for the Christmas Tree Lane Association, the nonprofit that organizes the tradition, told Nice News. She added: “There were a lot of tears, a lot of tears.” The annual ceremony always includes the lighting of a memorial tree, but this time there were 19 green lights amid the white ones, representing the 19 people who died in the disaster. Beneath the tree was a giant card where attendees could write messages of hope.
Overall, the feeling in the air was one of happiness, Arevalo said. The ceremony was the result of months of hard work by volunteers, who came out in droves to decorate the trees. “We were a little concerned that we weren’t going to get our volunteers back because a lot of them were residents. They had been doing it for years. They brought their kids out to do it. But this year, we got them all back.”
Christmas Tree Lane in 1953
Thankfully, none of the cedars were lost in the flames; the only damage was due to the powerful Santa Ana winds, which broke branches and some of the lights still in the trees. But a donation from Disney — more than 60 employees lost their homes in the Eaton and Palisades fires — went toward purchasing the materials to make new ones. That allowed the association to string an additional strand in each tree.
The tradition began in 1920, and Christmas Tree Lane — which is on the National Register of Historic Places — has only gone unlit twice since then: Once during World War II, and again amid the energy crisis in 1973. There was no ceremony in 2020 or 2021, during the pandemic, but the lights were still turned on. Per the association’s website, it’s the oldest large-scale Christmas lights display in the United States.
“It’s not pomp and circumstance. It’s not shiny, flashy lights,” Arevalo explained of the tradition’s enduring appeal. She added: “You know, it’s just so simple. It’s just trees and lights, that’s it, but I think that’s the magic of it.”
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