In a borrowed church space across town, 19-year-old Trinity Dela Cruz, who grew up singing in the Altadena Community Church choir, rehearses without the beautiful acoustics the sanctuary once had. Just a few feet away, the only object from St. Mark’s Episcopal Church that survived the fire, a bronze parish bell, sits in a storage unit, waiting to one day ring again. With both churches yet to be rebuilt, no one knows when, or even if their church communities will ever quite sound the same again.
Now almost a year after the devastating Eaton Canyon fire, the holiday season has become a test of resilience and strength, with people finding new traditions and ways to celebrate the Christmas season without the spaces parishioners considered home.
On the night of Jan. 7, a fire tore through Altadena, consuming more than 14,000 acres and reducing more than 9,000 structures to nothing but ash. What began as a small spark in Eaton Canyon was quickly driven south by a violent windstorm, destroying neighborhoods in minutes. More than 7,000 families lost their homes, and many more lost their churches, community centers, and gathering spaces that made Altadena feel so special. As the holiday season now arrives, many have yet to rebuild and remain displaced.
Altadena Community Church once stood 50 feet tall with traditional Spanish architecture. Today, it is surrounded by rubble and ashes, with only the entryway standing. St. Mark’s was known as the beautiful building up the hill, and its iconic red door is now completely black from fire damage.
For Cruz, Christmas always began with music. Since she was 9-years-old, her Christmases consisted of singing in the Altadena Community Church choir. She really knew it was Christmas when the service concluded and they would, “end with Silent Night. We’d turn off all the lights in the sanctuary, and then pass candles around and light each other’s candles. And to me, that just felt like the birth of Jesus is coming, this is what Christmas is all about.”
Both church communities are wondering how they might continue traditions that depend on their sanctuaries and sound, when both those elements are still missing.
Cruz grew up in the church with her family heavily involved with her mom acting as Education Director. Their family had even donated the rocking chair Cruz’s mom rocked her in as a baby to the church’s nursery. The chair was yet another loss for the family in the fire.
As the Christmas season approaches Cruz said the thing she will miss the most is the acoustics. “That was really what made the church holiday feel so magical, the sound of the choir within that space,” Cruz said. Now the church community is temporarily joining forces with another Presbyterian church across town, and it just doesn’t sound quite the same. “Nothing has ever compared to that sound that was made in my Altadena Community Church sanctuary. It was just such a familial state,” Cruz said.
Across the street, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church is dealing with a similar loss. The fire destroyed both the church and the K-6 school.
The Dean Howe Bell was cast in 1967 to honor a 15-year-old St. Mark’s parishioner who died of cancer. For more than 50 years, the bell rang to symbolize the start of Mass. When the church was lost on the morning of Jan. 8, parishioners believed the bell to have been lost with it. Days later, they sifted through ashes looking for anything salvageable and pulled it out of the rubble.
For St. Mark’s school alumna and chorus member Sophia Thompson, the bell being saved felt like a miracle. It is still sitting in storage waiting for the reconstruction of the church building. “It’s kind of a strange feeling that we’ve gone on in life,” she said, “and the bell not ringing, well, it’s just a reminder that it’s not there now, but one day it will ring again, and knowing that is the most beautiful thing.”
Thompson grew up attending and performing in the Christmas Eve pageant, an authentic St. Mark’s tradition consisting of children dressing up as angels for the Nativity scene, a special Christmas chorus, and ending with the distribution of Christingles – decorated oranges topped with candles to symbolize Christ’s love and light. “I feel like Christmas at St. Mark’s is truly the best time of the year,” she said. “I have the most vivid and wonderful memories of my childhood there.”
This year, the Christmas pageant looks a bit different, but it is still happening. St. Mark’s has joined forces with another Episcopal church in Eagle Rock in order to carry on their services and the pageant will continue on. “This year there will definitely be a heaviness and a bit of grief,” said Thompson, “but we’re still holding up the tradition, so it’s a kind of weird duality of the joy of celebrating Christmas in a new space, but still remembering what we’ve lost.”
Both congregations agree the biggest loss is the authentic sound and space both sanctuaries once had. Though their sense of community remains strong, in shared spaces, this Christmas season just feels slightly off.
For St. Mark’s Reverend Carri Patterson Grindon, it’s about the memories people have been building since 1949.
“The physical space is not the community, but it holds so much,” she said. “We’ve had people baptized there, married there, gathered weekly there… So much life has been lived in that space.”
Though the holidays have made the absence of these sanctuaries more pronounced, at the same time, the season brings hope.
The St. Mark’s community expresses a longing for their sanctuary and especially for the return of their bell.
“The bell always rings at the start of the church and chapel, but this year it won’t,” said Thompson. She shared that the absence of the beloved bell leaves its mark, but the perseverance of the Christmas pageant in a new space leaves the parish with hope and a bit of familiarity.
The Altadena Community Church expresses a similar longing.
For Cruz, though things might still sound a bit different, she noted that the sense of community can never be lost, and that is especially felt throughout the Christmas season. “I’ve been thinking about this one song lately that we would sing as our gathering song, ‘Give Me a Clean Heart’ by Dr. Doroux, it’s about how when things are super tough, Jesus is always there for you,” she said. “So for me, that was just a reminder that even though the space physically is gone, the feeling of the community and faith is still with us.”
Still, Cruz hopes the sanctuary and, with it, the sound that she grew up with, will return one day. For now she finds comfort in knowing that, “Church isn’t just the building, it’s the community of people that show up every Sunday, and that can never be lost.”