Costa Mesa party has offered more than five decades of Christmas cheer

The Sunday before Christmas is always special for Martha and Jack O’Meara.

That’s when they open their home to their neighbors in the Mesa Verde community of Costa Mesa for a Christmas potluck dinner and party.

They started the tradition in December 1970. Then, a funny thing started happening. People got older, and their kids had kids, and now those kids are starting to have kids too.

Four generations of people attended this year’s 53rd annual Christmas party, which was held on Dec. 17 (it’s held a week early in years where Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday).

Jack O’Meara turns 93 and Martha turns 89 in the next couple of months, but their famous Christmas party rolls on. The only year it was canceled it was due to COVID-19 in 2020.

Martha and Jack O’Meara are pictured at their Christmas party in 2021.

(Courtesy of Catherine Franklin)

“Who knows how long this is going to go on?,” wondered Catherine Franklin, the youngest of the O’Meara’s three daughters.

At 56, she has been attending the party for literally her whole life. Now her three adult sons also join in.

“[Martha] decks out the whole house,” Franklin said. “Christmas trees, unique Santas, stockings in the hallway. I’m exhausted just looking at her, honestly.”

There’s a potluck dinner followed by Christmas singing, featuring children playing instruments. Martha gives every family a Christmas ornament she designed — a different one each year — before they depart the gathering of up to 100 people.

Martha O’Meara also leads the singing, while her husband has traditionally led a group of men who try to cause mischief during “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Young guests perform at the O’Meara Christmas party, circa 1977. Pictured left to right: Kenny Isaak, Hapton Hill, Spencer Hill and Mike Nolan.

(Courtesy of Catherine Franklin)

Much of the party has moved outside, under tents, but it rages on.

Well, as much as 90-year-olds can rage. The party always starts at 5:30 p.m and is usually over a couple of hours later.

“What can I say — it’s marvelous,” said Adriana Panaresi, who lives six doors down from the O’Mearas, the way it’s been for 50-plus years.

Panaresi brings her trademark penne pasta to the Christmas party every year.

“Where we are, we do have a community, not just a sense of community,” she said. “We all love it. The kids grew up together, they’re still very close even though they have children of their own that are already grown up. It’s absolutely fantastic.”

Martha O’Meara, standing, leads Christmas singing during the early years of the party circa 1975.

(Courtesy of Catherine Franklin)

Panaresi’s daughter, Deanna Delaney, lives around the corner and now brings her own two sons to the gathering. Delaney was born in July of 1970, six months before the neighborhood gathering began, so she’s also been attending for her whole life.

She and her husband are both in real estate. They definitely mention the O’Meara Christmas party whenever they show property in Costa Mesa on Chios Road, Lemnos Drive, Balearic Drive or Baltra Place.

“It’s part of how I let everybody know that’s interested in buying a house in the neighborhood about how great the neighborhood really is,” Deanna Delaney said. “The Christmas party brings everybody together.”

Spencer Hill, now 59, grew up in the house across the street from the O’Mearas. His mother passed away recently and his father is in a memory care unit, so the house was recently sold.

A sampling of Christmas ornaments that have been given out at the O’Meara party in Costa Mesa over the years.

(Courtesy of Catherine Franklin )

“To come together to celebrate Christmas is just an amazing opportunity,” Hill said, adding that he wished his family had that kind of tradition in Newbury Park, where they currently live. “It’s wonderful to see generations, people my parents’ age down to young children. The O’Mearas have been really good about keeping it local in the neighborhood but embracing new blood and the new families that come. The family that bought my parents’ house, they have two young kids, and I think they were there.”

Yes, some of the names change but the tradition stays the same.

The O’Mearas wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s just been the same thing every single year,” said Catherine Franklin, adding that her mother plans in advance what the ornament is going to be each year along with other details.

The O’Meara ladies and longtime guests of 50-plus years are pictured in 2021. Back row: Catherine (O’Meara) Franklin, Susan O’Meara, Deanna (Panarisi) Delaney, Sam (Hill) Abramson; front/middle row: Fran Hill, Adriana Panarisi, Martha O’Meara, Cindy O’Meara.

(Courtesy of Catherine Franklin)

In 2018, Martha O’Meara had developed lung cancer and was in the hospital in early December having part of her lung removed.

But that still didn’t stop the show.

“We kept trying to convince her not to have it, but she just insisted,” Catherine Franklin recalled. “She’s very strong and outgoing, She wanted to do it. I was like, ‘OK, you’re barely out of the hospital and you can barely breathe, but I guess we’re going to do it.’”

Longtime O’Meara Christmas party guest Kris Wesley displays her ornament at the 2021 party.

(Courtesy of Catherine Franklin)