{"id":80865,"date":"2025-12-04T04:12:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T04:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/80865\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T04:12:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T04:12:25","slug":"how-scott-wardlaw-and-the-volunteers-at-christmas-tree-lane-have-kept-altadenas-most-joyous-tradition-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/80865\/","title":{"rendered":"How Scott Wardlaw and the volunteers at Christmas Tree Lane have kept Altadena\u2019s most joyous tradition alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scott
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutScott Wardlaw <\/p>\n

A mile-long street lined with towering deodar cedar trees, each dressed up with strings of vintage-inspired light bulbs: It\u2019s a greeting card\u2013worthy scene that seems more synonymous with, say, New England than Southern California. But that\u2019s part of what makes Altadena\u2019s Christmas Tree Lane<\/a> so magical.<\/p>\n

For 105 years, this stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue between Woodbury Road and Altadena Drive has beckoned folks from all over Los Angeles County looking for the region\u2019s most majestic Christmas lights display<\/a>. But these trees don\u2019t light themselves: Each fall, more than 100 volunteers unspool strings of lights and, armed with ropes, pulleys, ladders and hooks, drape them around the lane\u2019s 135 trees.<\/p>\n

Scott Wardlaw joined the ranks of volunteers about two decades ago, when his son needed to fulfill his high school\u2019s community service requirement. Wardlaw found the experience so welcoming that he decided to stick around and became fast friends with the longtime board members and chairs. \u201cThey made everybody feel welcome and useful and wanted here, and I\u2019ve tried to continue that tradition,\u201d he says, now the president of the Altadena Christmas Tree Lane Association.<\/p>\n

\"Christmas
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano <\/p>\n

The tradition seemed uncertain\u2014if not unfathomable\u2014at the beginning of the year. On the night of January 7, 2025, the Eaton Fire<\/a> broke out nearby; it would go on to kill 19 people and destroy more than 9,000 homes and businesses. Altadena was hit particularly hard: The entire community to the northwest of Christmas Tree Lane is just gone, and you\u2019ll quickly encounter burned houses surrounding the other sides of the street. But Christmas Tree Lane itself\u2014lights still on the trees at the time of the fire\u2014remained almost entirely intact. There was certainly some repair work that needed to be done, and some lines and ropes were burned. (The L.A. County Board of Supervisors and Disney, which had a number of area employees who lost their homes, provided some assistance this year.) But the joyous holiday landmark looks much like it has for the past century-plus, aside from a memorial tree at the Altadena Library that pays tribute to the lost homes.<\/p>\n

We caught up with Wardlaw on the final morning of decorating\u2014in between stringing up lights, signing volunteer slips for high school students and wrangling everyone over to a celebratory lunch\u2014to chat about all things Christmas Tree Lane. Look out for a pedestrian-friendly lighting ceremony<\/a> on December 6 at 6pm, or cruise the lane nightly till 10pm into the new year.<\/p>\n

\"Christmas
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out <\/p>\n

What was your first encounter with Christmas Tree Lane?<\/p>\n

My wife lived here for a number of years of her childhood, right over on Catherine Road, which runs parallel to Christmas Tree Lane just a block over. So her family used to come to see these lights. I had come when I was a kid\u2014not growing up here\u2014but I\u2019d come a distance with my family [from Pico Rivera].<\/p>\n

L.A. has many neighborhood lights displays, but what do you think makes Christmas Tree Lane so special?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that this is a 105-year-old ongoing event and phenomenon each year. I think it reflects the community. You don\u2019t see that in every suburban town. But you do see it in Altadena, and I attribute that to the diversity that we have here. We have a mix of all sorts of different folks from different areas, as is true of all of Southern California. We have a mix of racial backgrounds. Diversity of incomes. We have brainiacs from JPL living with a very large creative community. It\u2019s a wonderful place.<\/p>\n

\"Scott
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutScott Wardlaw <\/p>\n

What were you feeling both during and after the Eaton Fire?<\/p>\n

Well, my initial reaction to the fire was that so many people lost their homes and a lot of people I knew, even though I didn\u2019t live here [and live nearby in Arcadia]. I was concerned about that. My secondary concern was, did the lane survive? When we found out that the lane did survive, it was a great relief. But then we thought, well, what shape is it in, and will we be able to put the lights up again. This is our 105th year\u2014so is that all ended now?<\/p>\n

But luckily, the trees survived very well. At the north end, there\u2019s a number of homes that burned on the lane and on the residential side of those trees. But they\u2019ve been okayed by the county, and they\u2019re going to survive, and the parts over the streets are still green and healthy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What did it feel like on the first day of volunteering?<\/p>\n

Well, it was great, because sometimes at the beginning of the year, the volunteers are a little sparse. It takes a while for people to know that the lane operation is going. We have a new volunteer director, Mikayla Arevalo, and she was wonderful in that she enlisted volunteers. We hadn\u2019t really done that in the past. People would just come when they knew that the project was going on. [But this year] they just showed up at the beginning of the year because they wanted the lane to be there again.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get involved in your community and make a difference\u2026 that\u2019s what Christmas Tree Lane is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that we\u2019re at the end of the decorating process, how are you feeling?<\/p>\n

You know, I\u2019m always grateful. Even though this job is comparatively small, we have a lot of volunteers, and that\u2019s the part that I always am touched by: the dedication of the volunteers and the fact that they come out time and again when they don\u2019t have to. You know, it\u2019s manual labor. It\u2019s not that easy. But they do it. To realize that you can get involved in your community and make a difference and make people feel good doing it, that\u2019s what Christmas Tree Lane is all about.<\/p>\n

\"Christmas
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out <\/p>\n

\"Christmas
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out <\/p>\n

Are there any other holiday traditions in L.A. that you enjoy?<\/p>\n

As far as Christmas goes, I\u2019m pretty darn busy with [Christmas Tree Lane]. But we\u2019re done with that at the first week of December, and so I\u2019m sort of doing catch-up work after that. One thing I did go to last year was Candy Cane Lane. I\u2019d heard of it and had never been in El Segundo. And that was interesting.<\/p>\n

But also in this area [near Altadena], there\u2019s an awful lot of lighting to be seen. You can make a whole night of it by coming here, going to the Hastings Ranch homes. And then also on St. Albans Road in San Marino, right off of Huntington. That\u2019s like this, although it\u2019s a single block, but it\u2019s also lovely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How often are you visiting Christmas Tree Lane after it lights up?<\/p>\n

Last year, I came up every single night, just to see what it was like, to see if there were any traffic problems. To see if there\u2019s anything that we\u2014you know, once we\u2019re done, I have a little bit more time to think about planning for the future, and I like to come up and see what we might do that would make it better.<\/p>\n

\"Christmas
\nPhotograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out <\/p>\n

Do you have any tips for people who come to visit this?<\/p>\n

Well I will tell you, our official historian, Mary Landau, has pointed out that when it first started, it started at the north end at Altadena Drive and the [street] was closed to through traffic. And it was one direction, so they had several lanes going from the north to the south. But now, the unofficial entrance is at the south end going north. And that\u2019s how most people enter it, but you know, it\u2019s open to both ends so you can come. And I think the view is actually better going north to south. You get a better perspective with the city lights beyond.<\/p>\n

What do you think it\u2019s going to mean for people here to see this lit up again?<\/p>\n

I think it will represent hope. I think it will represent rebirth. I think it will represent the community of Altadena. We have had so much support over the years. And I think that Christmas Tree Lane is a symbol of Altadena, and people feel invested in the lane. And because of that, we have had a lot of support, which we\u2019re always grateful for.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutScott Wardlaw A mile-long street lined with towering deodar cedar trees, each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7579,48,52,51,47,50,49,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-80865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-categories-things-to-do","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","14":"tag-los-angeles-news","15":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}