Highlights from Sonoma's Christmas Tree Lighting

[Editors Note: Add your own photos of Santa to our photo essay, at right!]

Santa, kids, parents with cameras and a fire truck strung from stern to bow with red, blue, yellow and white lights—not to mention a siren to announce that Santa is here in Sonoma.  I can still here the ringing of bells from the fire truck making the rounds of city streets and loaded down with children who I know, having just been with them, are laughing and shouting in glee with their parents racing behind them snapping photos.

Welcome to the Holidays in Sonoma.

But let's take this step by step from the fire station on Second Street West where Santa was holed up as the vintage 1924 firetruck, engine idling, awaited his appearance from deep with in the bowls of the station.

Where is he, I asked a fireman who was tending to the fire truck. "He is in the bar, drinking," he said, laughing. It was joke and I took it as such. A short while after Santa emerged, smiling, patting the couple of kids that were at the station and talking to them. Turns out Santa (I did not ask his "real name" for I already knew it: Santa Clause; residence South Pole, occupation, bringing joy to kids). Santa said he had been doing this in Sonoma for about 15 years. And as I watched his eyes twinkle as he said it, I knew it had been a wonderful gig.  Santa is very busy this time as year, as you would imagine, and Santa said just about every day is filled with appearances here and there about the county. He clearly loves it. Your know when in Christmas stories Santa is always depicted as a plump, jolly old fellow, it described perfectly Sonoma's Santa.  Except he wasn't particularly plump (Weight Watchers apparently has established itself in the South Pole; I didn't want to be rude and ask him).

So, loaded with a few kids and their parents, the fire engine took off for its destination at City Hall.  Why City Hall? Because that is where a couple of hundred children and their parents were awaiting Santa's arrival, which would be marked by the lighting of Sonoma's Christmas tree.

 So far so good. As the fire engine was preparing to take off, our photographer, now aboard the jolly fire engine, yelled to me, "Aren't you coming along?"  Sounds reasonable. Except I have a bad knee and back (welcome to the joys of aging) and I wasn't sure I could get up into the truck. But vanity conquers all, so I painstakingly and awkwardly, climbed up the back of the truck (saying as I did, excuse the bad knee) and found myself among several children and their parents. I was so glad I did. On the way to City Hall the children, on the fire truck with Santa, were again laughing and yelling this and that. Santa looked quite regal in the passenger seat.

A short while later in what –despite the forecasts—was a mild, rainless evening, we drove up the drive to City Hall where scores of kids and their parents were waving and yelling and primed to the enthdegree for the arrival of Santa. If there is such a thing as chaotic joy, this was it.

The kids and their parents mobbed the fire truck. It was so loud that there was no way to hold a conversation with anyone, which is a definite impediment to asking kids and parents questions about what they were feeling. 

No matter, emotions play out on the expressions and eyes and body language of people, and there was no mistaking an atmosphere where time had stopped and we were one and the one we were was happy and joyful and hopeful and just plain grateful to be alive.

Back before I went to cover the event I wondered about Santa arriving on a fire truck. It seemed a bit incongruous.

But then it occurred to me that at a time of a faltering economy and a seemingly intractable war, Santa in a fire truck was metaphorically perfect: he was here to put out the fires of the hotspots of a troubled society and thereby answer the Dear Santa gift-requesting letters of many in this country. So, once again, Santa knew what he was doing.

None of this, however, was of concern to the bundled up kids who were whooping and hollering for this mystical man of happiness --meaning, in their minds, the guy who could give them the presents they wanted.  But, of course, Santa does not just hand out gifts willy-nilly. As is enshrined in the song about Santa and his requirements, Santa Clause is Coming to Town:

"He's making a list,

And checking it twice;

Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice.

Santa Claus is coming to town

He sees you when you're sleeping

He knows when you're awake

He knows if you've been bad or good

So be good for goodness sake!"

Looking at all the wonderful faces of our future Friday evening I felt so optimistic about the future. Not a normal feeling for the so-called cynical journalist. Santa and the kids made me feel warm and happy and optimistic. And that feeling—as ephemeral as it might be—is worth a lot.