Editorial: Blinded by the lights

“You can learn a lot about people by the way they handle three things,” observed Maya Angelou, “a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights.”

Well, we know Sonoma embraces a good drizzle and has plenty of backup khakis in the closet.

How it handles a string of 8-watt transparent C9 bulbs, however, we’re about to find out.

This year, the annual Plaza tree lighting – when the 8-acre park is aglow from mid-November through the darkest nights of winter – is going to look a little different. In addition to the tiny yellow lights wound tightly around Plaza trees that we’ve been accustomed to in recent years, holiday season 2019 brings a bedazzling anew: looming pentagonal stars by the toddler playground, illuminated “bead curtains” draped near the Bear Flag statue and globular baubles hanging near the Carnegie Building.

Rumor has it there’s even some red lights thrown in the mix.

The new lights make their debut Nov. 16 at the 7th annual Lighting of the Plaza event, from 5:30 to dusk.

For those who prefer their community Christmas lights the same year after year – there’s no room at the inn, old timer. But who, exactly, is it that’s using downtown Sonoma as his own personal luminatoria?

Enter Sonoma’s yuletide disruptor: Tim Zahner.

Zahner has been the director of the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau for less than two years and already he’s unapologetically messing with Sonoma’s “most wonderful time of the year.”

As Zahner puts it: “Like all things in Sonoma, there are traditions that we cherish and slight innovations to keep things interesting.”

In other words, Zahner’s just like Rudolf’s pal Hermy the North Pole elf who’d prefer a career in dentistry to a life toiling away in toy-making serfdom. He’s not afraid to buck the season-of-goodwill system.

The hallowed tradition of “lighting a bunch of stuff” during Christmas dates back to 17th century Germany, when revelers lighted candles attached to tree branches – a full 200 years before Thomas Edison did it with electric lights, and a full 350 years before PG&E began lighting tree branches each season in an entirely different way. By 1890, strings of Christmas tree lights were being mass-produced; the first White House Christmas tree lighting took place in 1895 during the Grover Cleveland administration. By the 1940s and ‘50s, Christmas lights were safe and affordable enough for the average American household to string each year, becoming the symbol of the Christmas season that we know today.

Sonoma’s Plaza lighting tradition has been brightening up the downtown since 2012.

Of course, what people like about tradition is that, by definition, it doesn’t change all that much – and it’s probably fair to say Sonoma is particularly averse to change. Heck, an ice cream store couldn’t even change the paint on its front door to pink without pretty much the entire city weighing in on the color scheme.

If a city can suffer from a fear of change, Sonoma is as metathesiophobic as they come.

Now the Visitors Bureau is introducing what Zahner describes as a “star forest” and a “light curtain” to its most anticipated traditional event of the holiday season.

This could be the most suspenseful tree lighting since Charlie Brown bought that limp dwarf spruce and fertilized it back to life with Linus’s saliva-soaked baby blanket.

“We’ve kept the classic look of the Plaza lights and added in some new twists to show off the unique aspects of the Plaza,” said Zahner.

We’ll learn a lot about Sonoma, by the way it handles its Christmas tree lights.

Email Jason at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.