The Altadena Public Library invites you to join them in celebrating 100 years of the Christmas Tree Lane Story from noon to 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12.
This virtual premiere of “100 Years of Lights: The Christmas Tree Lane Story” presents one of the oldest celebrations in the Los Angeles area, which people can enjoy from the comfort of their homes.
The story begins in 1920 when Altadena resident and department store owner Frederick C. Nash organized the first tree-lighting spectacle, decorating the deodars along Santa Rosa Avenue with colorful lights to attract shoppers to his store.
Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane is recognized as the oldest large-scale outdoor Christmas display in the world, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated as California State Landmark No. 990. Every Christmas season for 100 years, the majestic deodars on the “Mile of Christmas Trees” are strung with 10,000 lights.
The deodars in Altadena actually date back to 1885, when John P. and Frederick J. Woodbury, founders of Altadena, planted 134 deodar trees (Cedrus deodara) intended to be a grand mile-long driveway entrance to John’s mansion; John had returned from a trip to Italy with the seeds and raised the seedlings in a nursery behind Frederick’s house. The mansion never was built, but the trees thrived. The mansion’s “driveway” became Santa Rosa Avenue.
Since 1956, the tradition has been kept alive by the Christmas Tree Lane Association (CTLA), a nonprofit group of volunteers that has preserved Christmas Tree Lane without corporate sponsors or government funding, relying only on community support. CTLA members put up the lights between October and early December, then work on taking them down from February to April. In the Spring and Fall, volunteers rebuild the lines, replace faulty bulbs and clear the brush growing under the deodars.
In this COVID-19 Christmas season, the show will be a drive-through event only, but the online event at noon will be available on the Altadena Public Library’s YourTube page, www.youtube.com/c/
CTLA says this season’s lights will stay on from 5:30 pm to midnight until Jan. 1. They’ll be on for one more night to celebrate Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7.
