Lifestyle
Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane survives. Volunteers hope to turn the lights on again
• Altadena’s 104-year holiday lighting tradition known as Christmas Tree Lane escaped damage from the fire despite a torrent of embers coming down on its historic deodar cedars.
• Fierce Santa Ana winds did break branches from some of the trees, but most on Santa Rosa Avenue — the real name of the street — appear unscathed.
• The lights are usually taken down every February, but the head of the volunteer association hopes they can be turned on again “to show we’re still here.”
The people who tend Altadena’s venerable deodar cedars have suffered incomprehensible community losses this week, but Santa Rosa Avenue, a.k.a. Christmas Tree Lane, is a tiny bright spot among the wreckage wrought by the Eaton fire.
Despite what residents described as a fiery rain of embers propelled by hurricane force winds, the street’s 135 cedars seemed unfazed by the fire. The raging Santa Ana winds have broken a few branches, but overall, the massive trees with their graceful drapey limbs seem fine, which means the community’s 104-year holiday light tradition can continue.
Tony Ward and his wife, Maureen, longtime residents of Santa Rosa Avenue and past presidents of the Christmas Tree Lane Assn., went out for dinner in Hastings Ranch on Jan. 7, after the power went out at their home.
Thousands of people turn out every year to drive under a nearly mile-long canopy of sparkly lights strung on 135 deodar cedars on Santa Rosa Avenue in Altadena, a 104-year, volunteer-led tradition known as Christmas Tree Lane.
(Los Angeles Times)
The wind was intense when they left “but there wasn’t any discussion on the media about a fire,” Ward said.
Their dinner outing was short. Before their meal was served, Ward said, “the waiter came up and apologized. He said, ‘We have to give you the meal to go because we have an evacuation order.’ ”
The Wards’ home of nearly 50 years is at the southern end of Santa Rosa Avenue, near Woodbury Road, about six miles west of Hastings Ranch. As the couple returned home and looked to the north, “we could see Eaton Canyon was totally involved in fire, from top to bottom, and we were flabbergasted. It happened so fast,” Ward said.
Once they got home, they began packing “all the things we could think of, photos and business records, into our car and van,” in case they had to evacuate, Ward said. “The wind was intense, and the smoke was just heavy, heavy, heavy.”
The gusting Santa Ana winds blew fiery embers throughout Altadena, including on Woodlyn Road, on Jan. 8 during the Eaton fire.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The Wards have lived in their home for 50 years and never experienced this kind of fire event. Between the constant roar of the wind and the advancing flames, sleep was impossible that night.
They joined their neighbor standing watch outside “to see if anything flared up so we could run and stamp it out,” Ward said.
By 2:30 a.m. last Wednesday, “we noticed embers flying all the way down from way up in the [Angeles National] forest. They would strike the trees [the deodar cedars] and burst into little sparklers. And most of the embers went out, but this was something we’d never experienced before,” he said.
“And in addition to the wind roaring, there were very loud reports we could hear in the background, which we surmised to be exploding canisters of fuel for barbecues and outdoor space heater,” he added. “It was pretty scary because the wind was so intense, and the dust and ashes, everything was right in your eyes. And who thinks of wearing safety goggles? We had no idea that anything like this could happen so far away from the canyons and the national forest.”
When the evacuation order came at 5 a.m., the Wards finally left. They were able to return briefly last Thursday and found their home still standing. It turns out that most of the houses on Santa Rosa Avenue south of Mariposa Street escaped fire damage, although houses on adjoining streets were burned.
And the cedars, most of which were planted in the late 1880s, seemed fine.
A large broken branch from a deodar cedar hangs precariously from a string of lights on Santa Rosa Avenue the day after massive winds and the Eaton fire tore through Altadena.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
However, there is wind damage. A few large branches broken in the heavy winds dragged strings of lights with them to the street. But the trees didn’t burn, and it’s not clear why.
“They are pretty lusciously green,” said Cristhian Mace, a natural areas biologist for Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation, “which makes me think they were well irrigated, and that’s probably one of the factors that saved them. They weren’t dry and brittle, and when you look at cedar bark, it’s thick and somewhat fire resistant. … I don’t know how else to account for their resiliency.”
The trees are well tended by the Christmas Tree Lane Assn., but they are largely cared for by the homeowners on whose property the trees reside, said Assn. President Scott Wardlaw. During drought years, the association has taken steps to give the trees extra water, but usually, Wardlaw said, it has to warn homeowners against overwatering the deodar cedars. Too much water can lead to Armillaria root disease, a deadly form of root rot.
Preserving the trees is critical, because without the cedars, there is no Christmas Tree Lane.
In November 2024, volunteers use ropes and pulleys to hang long strings of holiday lights on Christmas Tree Lane’s deodar cedars. Casty Fortich, far left, and Temple City High School student Patience Cam, pull as Scott Wardlaw, president of the Altadena Christmas Tree Lane Assn., and Feli Hernandez, right, look on.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
It takes 10 weekends and more than a 100 volunteers to string those lights every year; volunteers begin their work in September to be ready for Altadena’s free winter festival and tree lighting event in early December. The same volunteers usually start taking the lights down for the year in February to avoid winter rains.
The festival is traditionally held in the parking area of the Altadena Public Library at the corner of Mariposa Street and Santa Rosa Avenue. Last week, several buildings at the intersection burned, including the Altadena Senior Center next door, but the library was saved.
The area lighting event that began in 1920 still has a small-town, old-fashioned feel, with booths and hot chocolate, local leaders making speeches and attendees walking the route once the lights are turned on. The Christmas Tree Lane display itself is pretty low-tech, with no music or special effects. But it still draws thousands of people every year for the simple pleasure of driving slowly for a near mile under a canopy of sparkly lights.
Wardlaw said at least 13 of the Christmas Tree Lane volunteers lost homes in the fire. Also, the local school that had let the association park its truck and store its container of equipment for free was destroyed in the fire.
Now the association is grappling with where it will store its truck and equipment, which didn’t burn in the fire.
The trick will be finding a new storage place the cash-strapped nonprofit can afford. “The cheapest storage units charge around $5 a day for a truck, nearly $1,900 a year, which we can’t afford for just parking,” Wardlaw said.
The association relies on annual $35 memberships and sponsors to cover its expenses, and several of its sponsors, including Altadena Hardware, St. Mark’s School, Pasadena Waldorf School and Western Fence Co., lost buildings in the fire.
Those losses have weighed heavy on Wardlaw, who, like most displaced Altadena residents, is chafing to get into the burned areas, presently closed to the public, to see what has been lost, and what, if anything, can be saved. The broken tree branches on the street will have to be cleared away, he said, and the strings of lights, many of which are likely broken, will have to be repaired or replaced.
The work will require volunteers, many of whom will be preoccupied by their own losses, Wardlaw acknowledged, but he sees the work ahead as a tiny act of defiance against all the fire’s terrible destruction.
“Something I want to do, if it’s feasible, is turn the lights on again as soon as possible,” he said, “Just so we can say, ‘We’re still here.’ ”
Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.
Kate Green/Getty Images
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Kate Green/Getty Images
Actor Jessie Buckley says she’s always been drawn to the “shadowy bits” of her characters — aspects that are disobedient, or “too much.” Perhaps that’s what led her to play Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.
Buckley says the film, which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, offered a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife: that she “had kept him back from his genius,” Buckley says.
But, she adds, “What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.”
The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best actress for Buckley. In it, she plays a woman deeply connected to nature, who faces conflicts in her marriage, as well as the death of their son Hamnet.
Buckley found out she was pregnant a week after the film wrapped. She’s since given birth to her first child, a daughter.
“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she says. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”
Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.
Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features
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Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features
Interview highlights
On filming the scene where she howls in grief when her son dies
I didn’t know that that was going to happen or come out, it wasn’t in the script. I think really [director] Chloé [Zhao] asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible. Of course, leading up to it, you’re aware this scene is coming, but that scene doesn’t stand on its own. By the time I’d met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet, and [co-stars] Paul [Mescal] and Emily Watson, and all the children and we really were a family. And Jacobi Jupe who plays Hamnet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible soul, and we really were a team. …
The death of a child is unfathomable. I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief. I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.
On what inspired her to pursue singing growing up
I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer and my dad has always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house and always something that was encouraged. … Early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing my mom sing in church and this quite intense mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story and the people that would listen to her. And at the end of it, something had been cracked between them and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom’s singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that.
On her first big break performing as a teen on the BBC singing competition I’d Do Anything — and being criticized by judges about her physical appearance
I was raw. I hadn’t trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in. I was only 17. I think there was part of their criticism which I think was destructive and unfair when it became about my awkwardness, or they would say I was masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school. … They sent me to [the musical production of] Chicago to put heels on and a leotard and learn how to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating, to be honest, and I’m sad about that because I think I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and wasn’t fully formed. … I was different. I was wild, I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could hardly keep my hands beside myself and I think to kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was lazy and, I think, boring.
On filming parts of the 2026 film The Bride! while pregnant
I really loved working when I was pregnant. I thought it was a pretty wild experience, especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about [this] monstrosity, and here I was with two heartbeats inside me. Becoming a mom and being pregnant did something, I think, for me. My experience of it, it’s so real that it really focuses [me to be] allergic to fake or to disconnection.
Since my daughter has come and I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody … as an actress, it’s very exciting to recognize that in yourself and really take ownership of yourself.
I’m excited to go back and work on this other side of becoming a mother in so many ways, because I’ve shed 10 layers of skin by loving more and experiencing life in such a new way with my daughter. I’m also scared to work again because it’s hard to be a mother and to work. That’s like a constant tug because I love what I do and I’m passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled — and also be a mother. And I think every mother can recognize that tug.
On the possibility of bringing her daughter to travel with her as she works
I haven’t filmed for nearly a year and I cannot wait. I’m hungry to create again. And my daughter will come with me. She’s seven months, so at the moment she can travel with us and it’s a beautiful life. And she meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that’s a great thing to see in a child. And I hope that’s something that I’ve imparted to her in the short time that she’s been on this earth is that life is beautiful and great and complex and alive and there’s no part of you that needs to be less in your life. You might have to work it out, but it’s worth it.
Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
Bruce Campbell
I’m Battling Cancer
Published
Bruce Campbell has revealed he has cancer, but says it’s a type that’s treatable, though not curable.
“The Evil Dead” actor shared the news Monday in a message to fans, writing, “Hi folks, these days, when someone is having a health issue, it’s referred to as an ‘opportunity,’ so let’s go with that — I’m having one of those.” He continued, “It’s also called a type of cancer that’s ‘treatable’ not ‘curable.’ I apologize if that’s a shock — it was to me too.”
Campbell said he wouldn’t go into further detail about his diagnosis, but explained his work schedule will be changing. “Appearances and cons and work in general need to take back seat to treatment,” he wrote, adding he plans to focus on getting “as well as I possibly can over the summer.”
As a result, Campbell says he has to cancel several convention appearances this summer, noting, “Treatment needs and professional obligations don’t always go hand-in-hand.”
He says his plan is to tour this fall in support of his new film, “Ernie & Emma,” which he stars in and directs.
Ending on a determined note, Campbell told fans, “I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch … and I expect to be around a while.”
Neve Campbell in Scream 7.
Paramount Pictures
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Paramount Pictures
The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.
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