Wednesday, December 3, 2025

Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane Returns for 105th Year After Fire Nearly Erased It

By THERESE EDU

In the weeks after the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena in January, Scott Wardlaw didn’t know if Christmas Tree Lane still existed. Barricades and National Guard troops blocked access. The fire had killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 structures, making it the second most destructive wildfire in California history. Two-thirds of the town was gone. 

“We didn’t know what survived,” said Wardlaw, president of the Christmas Tree Lane Association. “We didn’t know if the lane survived, much less if we would be able to have an event again.” 

On Saturday, he will preside over its 105th lighting ceremony.

The deodar cedars lining Santa Rosa Avenue—planted in 1885 by the Woodbury family, Altadena’s founders—emerged from the devastation intact. When the barricades finally lifted, Wardlaw and his volunteers found the trees waiting. 

“Eventually, we were able to go in and assess the situation, and we found that the lane was going to be okay,” he said. “We would be able to light it again.” 

The ceremony, scheduled for 6 p.m. at Santa Rosa Avenue and Mariposa Street, will open with a moment of silence lasting one minute and 19 seconds. The final 19 seconds honor each Altadenan confirmed dead in the January 7 wildfire. Twenty-two people were still missing as of July. 

Victoria Knapp, chair of the Altadena Town Council, said the fire shattered the community’s sense of itself. “Our town, our way of life, our feeling of connection have been devastated,” she said. “So many Altadenans are feeling disconnected and still reeling from the trauma.” 

Yet for Wardlaw, the story of this year’s ceremony is not grief alone. It is what happened when he began calling volunteers. 

Half the association’s board members lost their homes. More than half the volunteers lost theirs. They have scattered across Southern California, sleeping in spare rooms, rentals, anywhere they could land. Wardlaw did not know how many would return. 

“The showing has been greater than ever,” he said,”which is again a testament to the spirit of cooperation and sense of community in Altadena.”

Volunteers are now commuting back to the town that displaced them, stringing lights on trees that outlasted their houses. 

The Walt Disney Company approached the association after the fire, asking how it could help. A number of Disney Imagineers lost homes in the Altadena and Palisades fires, and the company wanted to support the community where its employees had lived. 

“They said,’Oh no. Well, that’s not what we want at all. We want to make it special,'” Wardlaw recalled. Disney provided funding for materials and hosted volunteers at its studios twice, where employees worked in shifts to build the light lines. The company is also sending costumed characters and donating more than 1,000 toys for Saturday’s event. 

When the moment of silence ends, the voices that lift the crowd will belong to the high school choral group from Pasadena Waldorf School. The school’s K-8 campus was destroyed completely—every building across its five-acre site burned to the ground. 

Knapp called the surviving cedars “an iconic symbol of Altadena.” The lane is designated California Historical Landmark No. 990, recognized as the oldest large-scale Christmas lighting spectacle in Southern California. Frederick C. Nash, an Altadena resident, organized the first ceremony in 1920. 

“It’s a 105-year-old tradition now,” Wardlaw said. “That means for over a century, people have come out and volunteered their time to carry this tradition on.” 

The wounds remain visible beyond the lane. At Mariposa Junction, the business count dropped from 13 to 6. Knapp urged visitors to patronize surviving shops. “It may make any one business’s ability to remain open,” she said. 

The Winterfest celebration surrounding the ceremony runs from 3 to 9 p.m. and will include vendors, food trucks, live music, free hot chocolate, and photos with Santa. The Altadena Town Council will staff a resource booth, and its executive committee will “walk the rope” behind the Muir Alumni Drum Line once the lights come on. 

For Wardlaw, the evening represents something beyond recovery. 

“At the same time, the thrust of the event will be that Altadena still survives,” he said. “We are going to come back from this, and that we are together, and that we’re a strong community.” 

He paused. 

“To me, it symbolizes the spirit of Altadena and that we are a community. No matter what happens to us, even when we’re torn apart, we are still a strong community. And Altadena will rise from the ashes.” 

The 105th Christmas Tree Lane lighting ceremony takes place Saturday, December 6, at 6 p.m. at Santa Rosa Avenue and Mariposa Street in Altadena. Winterfest festivities run from 3 to 9 p.m.