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A mile-long street lined with towering deodar cedar trees, each dressed up with strings of vintage-inspired light bulbs: It’s a greeting card–worthy scene that seems more synonymous with, say, New England than Southern California. But that’s part of what makes Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane so magical.
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’s most majestic Christmas lights display. But these trees don’t 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’s 135 trees.
Scott Wardlaw joined the ranks of volunteers about two decades ago, when his son needed to fulfill his high school’s 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. “They made everybody feel welcome and useful and wanted here, and I’ve tried to continue that tradition,” he says, now the president of the Altadena Christmas Tree Lane Association.
The tradition seemed uncertain—if not unfathomable—at the beginning of the year. On the night of January 7, 2025, the Eaton Fire 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’ll quickly encounter burned houses surrounding the other sides of the street. But Christmas Tree Lane itself—lights still on the trees at the time of the fire—remained 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.
We caught up with Wardlaw on the final morning of decorating—in between stringing up lights, signing volunteer slips for high school students and wrangling everyone over to a celebratory lunch—to chat about all things Christmas Tree Lane. Look out for a pedestrian-friendly lighting ceremony on December 6 at 6pm, or cruise the lane nightly till 10pm into the new year.
What was your first encounter with Christmas Tree Lane?
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—not growing up here—but I’d come a distance with my family [from Pico Rivera].
L.A. has many neighborhood lights displays, but what do you think makes Christmas Tree Lane so special?
It’s not just that this is a 105-year-old ongoing event and phenomenon each year. I think it reflects the community. You don’t 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’s a wonderful place.
What were you feeling both during and after the Eaton Fire?
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’t 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—so is that all ended now?
But luckily, the trees survived very well. At the north end, there’s a number of homes that burned on the lane and on the residential side of those trees. But they’ve been okayed by the county, and they’re going to survive, and the parts over the streets are still green and healthy.
What did it feel like on the first day of volunteering?
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’t 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.
“To get involved in your community and make a difference… that’s what Christmas Tree Lane is all about.”
Now that we’re at the end of the decorating process, how are you feeling?
You know, I’m always grateful. Even though this job is comparatively small, we have a lot of volunteers, and that’s 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’t have to. You know, it’s manual labor. It’s 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’s what Christmas Tree Lane is all about.
Are there any other holiday traditions in L.A. that you enjoy?
As far as Christmas goes, I’m pretty darn busy with [Christmas Tree Lane]. But we’re done with that at the first week of December, and so I’m sort of doing catch-up work after that. One thing I did go to last year was Candy Cane Lane. I’d heard of it and had never been in El Segundo. And that was interesting.
But also in this area [near Altadena], there’s 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’s like this, although it’s a single block, but it’s also lovely.
How often are you visiting Christmas Tree Lane after it lights up?
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’s anything that we—you know, once we’re 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.
Do you have any tips for people who come to visit this?
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’s how most people enter it, but you know, it’s 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.
What do you think it’s going to mean for people here to see this lit up again?
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’re always grateful for.