For the last 105 years, the annual Christmas Tree Lane Tree Lighting and Winterfest has marked the beginning of the holiday season in Altadena, California.
This year's event took on a deeper meaning. The mile-long stretch of some 140 historic deodar trees lit up with strings of rainbow lights on Saturday, just one day shy of the 11-month anniversary of the Eaton Fire that razed thousands of homes in Altadena.
“It's a beacon of hope and normality and joy in the community,” Len Schaustal told Homes.com in an interview ahead of Saturday's event. Schaustal, an Altadenan who lost his home in January’s fire, also owns a title escrow firm in Pasadena and is a member of the Christmas Tree Lane Association’s, or CTLA, board.
Schaustal said the event has grown in recent years, but this year, his team was preparing for an even larger crowd than usual. Last year, for example, an estimated 9,000 to 12,000 guests visited the festival. This year, "all bets are off," Schaustal said.
Indeed, Saturday's event drew enough onlookers to fill nearly the entire stretch of Christmas Tree Lane. The crowd was packed tight like sardines, with Santa hats, reindeer ears and toddlers perched on shoulders popping out every few feet.
The event included local vendors and organizations as well as a Disney-sponsored pop-up. The actual lighting ceremony was co-hosted by actor Edward James Olmos and CTLA's president, Scott Wardlaw. Speakers included U.S. Rep Judy Chu, Assemblymember John Harabedian and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.
"This event is helping," Schaustal said. "It just helps people feel connected when everything was kind of ripped away from us. As I tell people, there's no closure on something like this. You just have to accept it and move on. And that's really hard."
Lighting more than 140 trees in the wake of a devastating fire
In the immediate aftermath of the fires, the future of Christmas Tree Lane was in flux.
For one, it was unclear what homes were still standing in the first few days, much less if the eponymous trees were even still standing, according to Phyllis Cremer, an Altadena resident and principal at the local Saint Elizabeth Parish School. Cremer has taken a temporary gig with the Altadena Chamber of Commerce while her school remains closed.
"We were getting phone calls and everything, but we were still kind of like, is our house still standing?" Cremer told Homes.com in an interview on Saturday. "We had friends who were sneaking around...someone took a picture, so I actually have a time stamp of when we knew that we had a house."
Once it was confirmed which parts of the town were still standing — including Christmas Tree Lane — the event became a bit of a logistical nightmare, according to Schaustel.
It typically takes about ten weeks to put the lights up, so volunteers begin meeting every weekend starting in September. Once the lights are hung, they're officially lit in early December, and they stay on through the beginning of January. It usually takes until the beginning of February for the lights to actually come down, though.
Obviously, that wasn't possible this year. As of February, Altadena was little more than an amalgamation of debris-filled lots interspersed with still-standing — but mostly uninhabited — homes.
Residents, too busy with concern for their homes and community, didn't have the time to think about the Christmas lights they had recently celebrated under.
"I'll be honest, I was not really interested in doing it this year," Schaustel, who has been involved with CTLA since 2017, said of this year's festival and tree lighting. "But as we got into like May, June, it was sort of looking like, maybe we can do this. And we need to do it. The community needs it so badly. We realized that it's bigger than us."
Reminders of the Eaton Fire linger
That planning paved the way for the event's 105th year on Saturday.
Christmas decor glowed from front yards. Music and laughter emanated from behind picket fences as residents hosted lawn parties. In the street, neighbors exchanged hugs. Strollers and wagons filled with Christmas-costumed kids roamed the streets.
"Altadena has the best people," one Christmas-sweater-clad resident said.
But reminders of the fire were just as prevalent as the joyful holiday themes. Onlookers dabbed at tears during a memorial held for the 19 Altadenans who lost their lives in the fire. Conversations about rebuilding, contractors and architects mingled with warm hellos. Empty lots and dark, vacant houses mixed in among the warmly lit residences.
It's a portrait of where the Altadena rebuild stands as the town approaches the one-year anniversary of the fire. Some residents have moved back home. Others are in RVs on their now-vacant lots, or in temporary housing outside of the area. And there's a growing population of those leaving altogether.
As of Monday, 545 single-family rebuild construction permits had been issued in Altadena, according to data from Los Angeles County. There were 333 permits in construction, and three completed homes.
The town's infrastructure is still a long way from being reconstructed. Five businesses at Mariposa Junction, a stalwart of Altadena's commercial real estate scene, reopened in November, signaling what's to come as recovery continues.
"We're all dealing with some level of loss," Cremer said. "This is significant in that people want to be together."