Meet the woman who helped create the beloved Daisy Lane Parade, the Mother of Christmas Tree Lane: Maria Norvell.
On Dec. 9, hundreds of Wrigley neighbors, family and friends will don their coziest winter apparel and line the sidewalks for the annual Daisy Lane Parade.
They will see gingerbread people, snowmen, elves and Mr. and Mrs. Clauses. Also along for the ride is the woman who helped create the beloved tradition, the Mother of Christmas Tree Lane: Maria Norvell.
Norvell has seen the tradition through many iterations and themes, including before it was a parade and was merely a nativity scene and villages decorating the medians along Daisy Avenue. She can recall joyriding down the road ending at PCH before the street had any decorations.
“As a teenager, I used to go down Daisy [Avenue] if someone had a convertible from Poly [High School], we would go down Daisy, so I’ve loved it ever since I was a teenager,” Norvell said.
In the early 1950s, decommissioned railroad tracks used to line the median up and down Daisy Avenue until resident Gertrude Whittle asked the Long Beach City Council and the Council of Churches to remove the tracks and replace it with something to bring the community together.
By 1953, the City began decorating its newly placed medians with a nativity scene and a Christmas village, featuring wooden buildings and characters.
Since Christmas has always been Norvell’s favorite holiday, she took her children to visit the village and nativity scene every year.
Unfortunately, the tradition was short-lived, and experienced a long hiatus (or in Norvell’s words, “fell apart”) before the 1988 Long Beach City Council elected to bring it back in the form of a parade. Equipped with four buildings that remained from the original displays, the City began creating an entire town and a multitude of characters based on a “wishlist” from Norvell.
“We had a big committee back then, and we decided what we would like to have on Daisy,” Norvell said.
From August to December in 1988, City-hired carpenters built festive displays: Mr. and Mrs. Claus, the old woman and the shoe, 12 elves, gingerbread houses and more. The wooden jolly characters showed up on Norvell’s lawn and she, along with her mother and many neighbors, hand-painted each one.
In the years since, the list of characters and displays have grown; one year they added 10-foot tall snowmen, another year they added gnomes. This year, they’ve added a cobbler shop to the Christmas village.
Norvells proudly says she can tell the history of every display in the parade, decorating the medians along Daisy. She was officially named the Mother of Christmas Tree Lane 39 years ago by the Long Beach City Council.
“I don’t have any grandchildren, so I have stuck with this,” Norvell said. “I just love the children when they first see Daisy with their smiles and everything. So all those kids are mine.”
It’s a beloved, community-celebrated tradition for many in the Wrigley neighborhood. Local company Prize Transfer donates a trailer and driver every year to help deliver pieces, one of the Wrigley Neighborhood Association board members plays Santa Claus in the parade, and over 50 volunteers showed up this year to help decorate and prepare Daisy Avenue.
Norvell said donations from businesses, organizations and residents help keep the parade alive. Just in case, she saves up money throughout the year for any Daisy Lane Parade needs.
“I’ll try to do this as long as I can,” Norvell said. “I want to keep this alive.”
Residents can watch the annual Daisy Lane Parade and see the Mother of Christmas Lane herself, on Dec. 9 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The parade will begin on Daisy Avenue at West Burnett Street and travel south down the east side of Daisy Avenue to Pacific Coast Highway, where it will make its way around the median and back up the west side of Daisy Avenue, concluding near West Hill Street and Maine Avenue around 7 p.m.
Residents may view the complete parade route here. The parade route will be closed to traffic.
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