Frond Memory of Planet Enlightened by Abdul’s Touch

You can already hear the jokes about it back East, delivered right in there with the “only in Southern California” banter about seeing Santa rise from a Jacuzzi on Christmas Day.

The joke might start something like, “When Planet Hollywood in Santa Ana wanted to decorate for the holidays, it went all out . . . lighting up palm trees.”

Yep, 100-foot-high palm trees. A dozen of them that surround the restaurant across the street from South Coast Plaza.

Singer Paula Abdul, whose hits include “Straight Up,” “Rush, Rush” and “The Promise of a New Day,” was the event’s appropriately flashy host. She smiled and flipped on a huge light switch that flooded the towering trees from the trunk up. Giggling teen girls clustered around to snap Abdul’s picture and elbow in to get an autograph.

The 100-year-old, newly transplanted palm trees commemorate the centennial anniversary of the Segerstrom family, the owners of South Coast Plaza, in Orange County.

I’m dreaming of a coconut Christmas . . .