At Gravesides, a Poignant Touch of Holiday Spirit

No garland has ever been hung with more care than the one placed around the Christmas tree this week by George Gonzalez.

“This is for my mom,” the 7-year-old explained, stepping back to admire the gaily decorated fir standing over the grave of Gladys Recinos. “She died of brain cancer.”

The solemn-faced first-grader was at the Forest Lawn cemetery in the hills above Burbank with his grandmother, Gemima Mejia of Los Angeles. He flashed a slight smile as he studied the miniature toys and the bright red ribbons attached to the tree’s branches and fingered a tiny Little Drummer Boy ornament.

Mejia glanced at the boy and then at the bronze marker on the ground.

“My daughter died Dec. 12, 2001. She was only 24,” Mejia said. “We are here to honor her memory.”

Forests of evergreens have sprouted this week at cemeteries across Los Angeles. Families are honoring the memories of loved ones by decorating graves with Christmas trees and other symbols of the holidays.

Some of the decorations are simple in their elegance. Others are personal and poignant.

At the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, about two dozen children’s graves along the memorial park’s Van Ness Avenue wall are marked by tinsel-draped miniature fencing.

Christmas stockings, a teddy bear and a tiny backpack are carefully arranged above the plot of a girl named Natally. Victor is remembered with a toy car, a Winnie-the-Pooh character, building blocks, snowmen and candy canes.

A girl named Seidy who died at 5 months is memorialized at a plot a few steps away with porcelain angels, a tiny potted Christmas tree and a “Santaland” sign.

“It’s a very important way for people to mourn,” said a spokeswoman for Inglewood Park Cemetery, where figurines and Nativity scenes were being placed around graves this week. “Some people go so far as to put up battery-operated Christmas lights.”

At Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, decorated trees as tall as 7 feet are sometimes seen. “It gets pretty spectacular around here at Christmastime,” said spokesman Nick Clark.

Although some view such displays as inappropriate, experts say it’s a natural part of the grieving process. And in some cultures, it’s part of centuries-old tradition.

“It’s a healthy thing to keep the memory and connection with a loved one,” said Ronald Barrett, a professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University in Westchester who is an expert on grieving.

“It’s not a new invention. It probably goes as far back as we can recall evidence about funeral rituals. It could go back thousands of years. Honor is an important word: In many cultures, it’s done as a sense of obligation. You see it prominently displayed in the Latino tradition, but you see it worldwide, even Africa and the Caribbean.”

A tradition in Finland is for candles to be placed on the graves of loved ones each Christmas Eve. Early Spanish missionaries in Mexico are said to have honored the dead with an end-of-the-year festival. A Welsh tradition from the mid-1700s was to decorate at the end of the year with evergreens as a symbol of rebirth following death.

Experts point out that early Egyptians filled tombs with belongings of the deceased and that early Chinese did much the same, sometimes building small temples next to graves so family members could leave offerings to ancestors.

Today’s holiday decorations are temporary. Cemetery operators generally postpone weekly grounds maintenance to allow families to leave items between mid-December and early January.

But there are limits.

Forest Lawn dots its grounds with signs listing “Rules for Holiday Decorations.” Prohibited items are fencing or the outlining of interment spaces, decorations taller than 4 feet and use of support wires. Visitors seemed mindful of the rules.

On one hillside, an elaborate display of poinsettias and holiday decorations included solar-powered light fixtures that hugged the ground.

A few feet away, a woman used a hammer to pound metal spikes anchoring potted poinsettias and a decorated fir tree to the ground. Then she trekked down the hill to fetch a jug to water all three of the plants.

Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles goes so far as to place its written decoration policy on the windshields of mourners attending funerals prior to the holidays.

Only potted Christmas trees 2 feet or shorter are permitted. Decorations can be fabric, wood or paper, but Christmas lights, music boxes “or any battery or electrically operated equipment” are prohibited. So are plastic, glass “or other fragile, easily breakable ornaments.”

Also banned from the archdiocese’s 11 cemeteries are standing decorations -- “Santa Claus, Nutcracker figures, Candy Canes, Snowmen” -- and anchoring spikes. Enforcement of those rules appeared to be relaxed, however.

Operators of Angeles Rosedale Cemetery on Washington Boulevard said decorations there are low-key. Some Christian groups bring poinsettias.

Fidel Lemus, grounds supervisor for Angeles Rosedale, said plastic trees are not allowed. But real trees are. So are musical Christmas cards that play carols when they are opened.

“It brings color and beauty to the cemetery,” Lemus said.

It also helps bring closure to families observing the first Christmas since the death of a loved one.

At the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Marisela Gonzales and husband Ulices Valdez of Pacoima were placing a Christmas tree and other holiday decorations around the grave of their son.

Andy Valdez died in July at 7 months of a genetic spinal muscular disease. His happy face is depicted on a photograph engraved on his headstone.

“He was always smiling. He was a good baby. It was a good Christmas last year,” Gonzales said.

Valdez, a factory supervisor, used a hand trowel to anchor a tiny Santa at the head of the grave, marked by two tiny balloons at one end and small candy canes at the other. Then he straightened the 2-foot pine, which was decorated with toy drum ornaments and miniature angels and a silver star on top.

“This will be a hard holiday with him not being with us anymore,” the father said quietly.

But for Andy Valdez, the love of his family will surround his resting place this Christmas.