Altadena Junction: Looking ahead past the holidays

Tree debris is slowly being picked up by county crews, life is returning to normal and now Altadena is fully engulfed in the holiday spirit — but is also looking ahead to 2012.

Sheriff’s food and toy drive: One of the biggest local events of the year is the Altadena Sheriff’s Station’s food and toy drive. In the largest outpouring of generosity in the history of the event, donors provided 300 families with food, toys and a holiday turkey this year. Starting before Thanksgiving, the deputies at Altadena Station worked with neighborhood groups and others to collect everything to help families in need. Volunteers from all over the community were involved in sorting the donations last weekend, and on Saturday everything was delivered with the help of students from John Muir High School’s Mentoring and Partnership for Youth Development program, the Pasadena Unified School District’s Bright Futures Scholars and many community volunteers.

Balian mansion: Altadena has two notable Christmas light destinations: Christmas Tree Lane on Santa Rosa Avenue, which lit up last week, and the Balian family mansion, which fired up its Christmas display to the delight of residents on Wednesday. During most of the year, the Balian home is just a large, pink wedding cake of a mansion. But around Christmastime it’s like the mother ship in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”— lights shining from every surface, with a Nativity display, a Peanuts display, sometimes even a Christmas dinosaur. The Balian family also plays festive music during the weekends, when visitors and tour buses hit the neighborhood to have a look. The Balian mansion is at Allen Avenue and Mendocino Lane. Just follow the line of cars up Allen and you’ll get there. It’s impossible to miss.

Holiday music: Two great free holiday concerts take place today. At 6 p.m. the Altadena Community Church, 943 E. Altadena Dr., hosts the Briton Ensemble, with its selection of holiday choral music. At 7 p.m. Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1757 N. Lake Ave., hosts its annual Christmas concert of the Modern Brass. Conducted by Kevin Mayse and joined by members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the ensemble plays some surprising and fun renditions of traditional Christmas favorites. The Westminster Bell Choir and organist Imre Szilas also will perform, with narration by Dr. Twine Campbell.

Free emergency training: Two Community Emergency Response Team classes will be held in Altadena in coming weeks. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will hold training Jan. 7 through 14 (two all-day sessions on Saturdays and three evening sessions during the week). The Los Angeles County Fire Department will hold CERT training on three all-day Saturday sessions, Jan. 21, 28, and Feb. 4. For more information or to enroll, visit the Sheriff’s Department page at www.rcpi-ca.org/calendar/list/ or the Fire Department at https://fire.lacounty.gov/cert.

Altadena Chamber names honorees: Every year the Altadena Chamber of Commerce names a Citizen of the Year. This year’s honoree is Bill Westphal. Westphal is a steady presence as a sheriff’s volunteer, a member of the Sheriff’s Support Group, a photographer for many community events and the operator of a weather station and the Altadena Weathercam (https://tinyurl.com/altadenacam) from the top of his home. He’s also a ham radio operator and maintains ATT’s repeater, called “The Happiest Repeater on Earth,” in the local foothills. Bill is everywhere and richly he deserves this recognition.

For 2011, the Chamber launched a new award, Business of the Year. The first business to be so honored is Altadenablog. We can probably name half a dozen businesses that deserve this more, but we are humbled and grateful for this recognition from the Altadena community for the service we provide. Thank you.

TIMOTHY RUTT is the publisher and editor of Altadenablog, found at www.altadenablog.com. Altadena Junction appears weekly in the Sunday Valley Sun.