LOS ANGELES — It started 30 years ago, with donated light strings and under a dozen people singing carols in a median on Glendale Boulevard. Now, on Dec. 12, the Atwater Village Tree Lighting Festival will shut the street down for the latest edition of the annual neighborhood event.

“Now it’s about 1,500 Angelenos gathering for a full night — a stage show, Santa arriving atop a fire truck and the lights going on for the holiday season,” said Courtney Morris, who is co-chairing the event for the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council. The festival centers on the lighting of an 80-foot-tall cedar on Glendale Blvd., just off of Brunswick Avenue.

The one-night festival tradition began in 1991, when Brigid LaBonge (the wife of late Los Angeles Councilman Tom LaBonge, who then was working in the office of Councilman John Ferraro) donated the lights to start the Christmas celebration. The tree, she said, was in the perfect position on the boulevard to enter Atwater and properly herald the neighborhood.

“We lived ten houses down on Brunswick, and there was no holiday anything in Atwater, so Tom and I brought the first set of lights,” LaBonge told Spectrum News 1. “It’s all we could afford! Then we had children and couldn’t afford to replenish it — but it’s come a long way.”

Long-time Atwater Villagers remember those early ceremonies as humble — one joked that the lights wouldn’t stretch down from the top of the tree to the street level (which LaBonge confirmed, with a “definitely not!” and a chuckle); another said that the city was hanging “Charlie Brown” lights.

“It wasn’t a curated decoration,” said Luis Lopez, owner of Lopez Automotive and decades-long Atwater Villager. “There was electricity at the median, they connected it, we connected it, and people just on the median, singing carols. That was it — it was very simple.” And afterward, folks would meet up at the nearby Acapulco Restaurant to warm up with Christmas Spirit (or, perhaps, Christmas spirits).

The tradition grew as the Atwater Village Chamber of Commerce became involved and continued when the local neighborhood council took over the reins.

Now, the ceremony is expanding from the nearby Wells Fargo parking lot (one of its recent homes) to eastbound Glendale Boulevard — on the night of the festival, two blocks will be closed off on the neighborhood’s main drag, giving folks an opportunity to spread out and enjoy the holiday cheer safely.

This year’s event is promised to include musicians, singers and local kids dance groups, as well as snacks and drinks on sale. At least a handful of local businesses on the boulevard plan to keep extended hours that Sunday as well, Morris said.

The festival itself is a source of neighborhood pride — on top of the neighborhood council’s funds and assistance from Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell’s office, the event has raised more than $17,000 to ensure that it goes off as planned, Morris said.

“Those kids that used to go to the tree lighting in the 90s suddenly have kids of their own, and want to bring their kids; it’s a memory of childhood that they used to have,” Lopez said. That, in combination with the “go-getters” who want to grow the event, are to thank for the expanded festival. “I say that in the most positive way. They want to make it big out of community pride, showcasing Atwater Village.”