Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Christmas in Stanton

Welcome to scenic Saddleback Pines, nestled between the high-tension power lines and the train tracks at 10722-10800 S. Magnolia Ave., in the sylvan wonderland of Stanton, California. Their stylish team of tree technicians is waiting eagerly to assist you.
It appears this Christmas tree farm was in operation from at least 1968 until at least 1985. They had over 2,000 trees each year on about 6 acres of land. Saddleback Pines sold both "choose-and-cut" and potted trees. (No, it's not what you'd call serious history," but after five years of blogging I don't have as much Christmasy material as I used to.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, christmas in cali. The memories...

My family went to a christmas tree farm like this one every year as both parents were from the east and christmas in cali was already pretty freaky to them. Local boy scout trees were all short needles, old, dry from the midwest and too much money. Christmas tree farm trees were the only way to get a huge, bushy tree with the long needles that wouldn't fall off before christmas. It would barely fit the house and hold all of our ornaments- even if Dad had to chop off the top to make it fit!

Another memory was studying hundreds of toy pages in the huge Sears "Wish Book" -every day from October till christmas eve.

And seeing Santa fly over HB! Never forget that. That night I stayed up to see Santa. I got a big shock from plugging in the old christmas lights, and was thrown across the room. Not sure if the shock was before or after I got into the liquor cabinet... Of course perhaps I had seen the neighbors' large plastic santas and reindeer literally flying - in the late Santa Ana winds.

Merry christmas, kwanzaa, hanukkah, yule, solstice, and other festivals of light to you all.

-An HB kid in exile on the east coast

Chris Jepsen said...

Ah, the Sears Wish Book. That brings back memories for pretty much EVERYONE. I remeber getting the Sears exclusive Star Wars Mos Eisley Cantina playset from that catalog one year.

(If I'm gonna drift from history to nostalgia, this is the time of year to do it.)