Despite efforts by the sponsoring Downtown Business Assn. to flatten Christmas, to make it go poof at last night’s “Holiday” Tree Lighting in Town Plaza, the hundreds of parents who turned out with their hundreds of young children made it plain they came to cheer for Christmas, not the fictional holiday of Holiday. Or for the “Holiday” tree.
A thundering roar rose to the darkened skies above Downtown when 9-year-old Luke Boulanger, grandson of City Councilman Andy Weissman, poised beside Mayor Mehaul O’Leary, pulled the switch at 6:20 that ignited the Christmas Tree.
The brilliant glow on the faces of 3- and 4-year-olds when the lights magically appeared on the 22-foot, politically correct tree, should remain permanently imprinted on the minds of all present.
For the information of the Downtown Business Assn., those were traditional Johnny Mathis Christmas songs — not “Holiday” melodies — playing in the background, wafting through the Plaza, a little before and a little after 6 o’clock. On a tolerably cool evening, classical singers recalled the Christ child being born on Christmas Day, not Holiday Day. Gene Autry sang about Rudolph, the perky deer with the scarlet schnozzola, shlepping Santa across the world on Christmas Eve, not Holiday Eve.
Christmas with Twins
The first familiar cheery face spotted in the huge crowd belonged to Kathy Paspalis, by now a senior member of the School Board, and the mother of twins, Megan and Matthew, a month from entering their teen years.
Ms. Paspalis said her favorite Christmas memory came a dozen years ago when she took the twins, then 11 months old, across country to her childhood home in Stamford, CN.
“Their grandparents got to have their first Christmas with them,” she said. “The twins barely remember it, but I remember having a lot of fun.”
Of Greek heritage, Ms. Paspalis said that her family celebrates “a mish-mosh of American and Greek things that are going on, with some Greek food.
“It is much easier to do Christmas here than traipsing back East with all those gifts. I am going to get a tree and then hide presents as best I can.”
Her only remaining dilemma is when to purchase her tree. “I don’t want to do it too early,” Ms. Paspalis says, “because then, by Christmas, it is dead.”
Somewhere inside of Mayor O’Leary, emcee for the informal ceremony, a showman is fighting hard to get out.
His Irish brogue has not lost a step since he emigrated from Dublin.
The man loves a microphone, and it loves him back. Without being coaxed, the Mayor promptly broke into the spirit of Christmas and a song.
Doing a sort of Irish jig, he warbled, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”
He thanked Tony Spano’s Chamber Singers from the Academy of Visual and Performing Arts at Culver City High School, and the choir from Lin Howe School, next door to Town Plaza, for their entertaining contributions.
The Mayor also introduced smartly outfitted Sidney Kamlager, a senior aide to state Assemblyperson Holly Mitchell (D-Culver City).
In her message of greeting, Ms. Kamlager struck an economic note, urging holidaying families to patronize hometown businesses large and small.
In closing, Ms. Kamlager was properly upbeat — “I want to wish all of us health, wealth and prosperity during this holiday season.”
And you know what else occurs during the “holiday” season? Not Holiday but Christmas.
