Twinkling tradition

A sea of Santa hats turned eagerly to the stage as old Saint Nick himself popped up from a crowd of elves.

Everyone had to move quickly, he said, if he was going to make it to South Coast Plaza by morning.

“Tonight we light the North Pole community tree as a reminder of all that’s good in the world!” he shouted.

A crowd of parents, children and the young at heart gathered across from South Coast Plaza for its annual tree-lighting ceremony, complete with carols and music from the Orange County High School of the Arts.

As watchers sipped free apple cider and ate sugar cookies, musicians, singers and dancers from the school took them through a revue of nearly all the Christmas songs in the book, from “Here Comes Santa Claus” to “The Carol of the Bells.”

In the middle of one number, jets of foam sent an awfully convincing version of snow floating down on the crowd.

Kids ran to catch it in their hands and free Santa hats.

“I got it!” yelled 6-year-old Tina Nguyen, of Costa Mesa, diving for a fluff of snow.

Finally, after some tap-dancing reindeer sung out “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” the main event: 96 feet of tree suddenly went bright with multicolored lights, the only ornaments on them.

The 96-foot fir tree from Mount Shasta comes from an annual forest thinning program, said Stan Taeger, South Coast Plaza’s director of office management, said from the stage to the crowd.

While the trees from the program come in all shapes and sizes, this year they got lucky, he said.

“This year we are blessed,” he said. “It’s over 96 feet tall and holds more than 20,000 lights. That’s the most lights we’ve ever had. Our engineers love all that power.”

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at michael.alexander@latimes. com.