Submitted by Joan Greenwood
Early on the morning of December 2, over 20 Wrigley Area Neighborhood Alliance (WANA) volunteers began the two-week-long process of getting the [Christmas Tree] Lane ready for the 55th Annual Daisy Avenue Holiday Parade. Most people don’t realize that there are really two separate activities— the Lane events organized and hosted by WANA and the parade organized and sponsored by the City of Long Beach.
The volunteers have different reasons for helping with the Lane every year. Jim Sollenbarger said that he loved to paint. “My favorite piece was gilding the cross on the church so it glistens with gold. Even though I professionally design rooms for special audio/video equipment, including the one at Cape Canaveral that everyone sees on TV during liftoff, I had to go to the Internet to find out how to do gilding, so I learned a lot too.”
For Jim Trout, it is a more personal reason. Jim and his daughter worked on the Lane together for many years before she passed away six years ago and, in memory of her, he has planted a tree in the Lane. “Every year, my family and I personally decorate her tree.”
Eighty-four-year-old Dolores Almendarez has been working on the lane since 1988. “My daughter Maria loves Christmas Tree Lane almost as much as I do. I’ve come here with my family since the late ’50s, and we want to make sure it continues.”
The first step in getting the Lane ready for the 10,000-plus people who visit this Wrigley-style Winter Wonderland every year is to transport the 31 large displays and 17 snow people from storage to the four blocks of grassy median between Pacific Coast Highway and Hill Street. The next step is to string lights on the 24 mature fir trees on the median strip. And then, there are the finishing touches, home decorating contest and entertainment nights.
Volunteers from Pacific Baptist Church did much of the heavy lifting when they unloaded the displays from a truck donated by Atlas Marine and when, with the assistance of a forklift that they rented and one that Wrigley resident Victor Maylon donated, they helped Jim Trout and Vernon Rudd place them in their proper locations under WANA’s Vice President’s Maria Norvell’s careful supervision.
On Saturday, December 6, dozens of WANA and Pacific Baptist Church volunteers with the finishing touches. With great enthusiasm and holiday spirit, they: spruced up the displays that needed dusting and washing; placed almost 100 energy-efficient flood lights to highlight the displays; used sledgehammers to pound in more than 300 fence stakes; positioned and secured 75 wooden figurines; unrolled and installed about 1/2 mile of wire fencing to protect each display; tied on more than 800 red bows to the fencing; and passed out hundreds of flyers to area residents
More volunteers will brave the night chill on Friday, December 12— WANA’s Contest Night, which is traditionally the night before the parade. These judges will decide how to distribute two sets of 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes totally almost $1,000— one set for homes south of Hill Street and the other for homes north of Hill to Willow Street.
All of these volunteer efforts will ensure that the splendor of Christmas Tree Lane will be ready for visitors come Parade night— December 13, with a step-off time of 5 p.m. “Daisy Avenue Christmas Tree Lane is a project by and for neighborhood people who love Long Beach and our Wrigley community. It’s the only Christmas event of its kind in the whole United States,” said Maria Norvell, who has spearheaded this effort for 19 years.
For more information, contact Maria Norvell at (562) 427-5021 or send an e-mail to
