It\u2019s entirely appropriate that the grand marshals for the 40th anniversary of the OB Holiday Parade, themed Miracle On Newport Avenue, will be the family that started it all: the James brothers of the James Gang Co. printers.
\n“Actually, it was my late brother, Rich James, who started it,” said Mike James of his family\u2019s business and their historic contribution to the beach community\u2019s annual holiday tree planting and festive parade.
\n“Rich brought the first tree down in 1980 from Mount Shasta, a 70-foot Star pine,” said Mike. “It was his idea to have a giant tree at the beach.”
\nMike James and his surviving brothers Ron, Greg, and Pat will be marching at the head of a kazoo band on Saturday, Dec. 7 commemorating the very first planting of the tree preceding OB\u2019s first-holiday parade.
\nMike talked about how Rich got the first parade kick-started.
\n“The night after they put the first tree in the sand, my brothers went from bar to bar in OB handing out kazoos that you hum into and makes noises,” Mike said. “They all marched doing this impromptu parade down the middle of Newport Avenue to celebrate the tree.”
\nThere has been a tree, and a parade, ever since in OB. Mike James has also doubled as an announcer for the tree lighting, which starts at 5:05 p.m. on Dec. 7 officially starting the parade.
\nJames said entertainment will be furnished by the Ocean Beach Marching Kazoo Band. “Some of the band members are among the original people in the very first parade, as well as our family, friends and former employees,” he said.
\nJames said his family is proud to have begun their community\u2019s annual holiday celebration.\u00a0
\n“It is something we take great pride in, something that\u2019s continuing,” he said. “We are thankful that the community still volunteers and keeps this tradition alive. This being the 40th year, it is very special \u2014 and nice \u2014 to be taking part in the parade as well.”\u00a0
\nThe annual transplantation of the Christmas tree, always offered by an anonymous donor, to the beach near OB pier took place Dec. 3 at 11 a.m.
\nThat morning, San Diego Police escorted the truck carrying the tree through the OB?community to the foot of Newport Avenue in a special place in the sand that was uncovered and cleaned out for it.\u00a0
\nTwo days later, on Dec. 5, local schoolchildren will make their annual pilgrimage to the OB Christmas tree to see Santa from 9 a.m. to noon, and to add their own hand-made ornaments to hang on it.
\n“We do have a tree this year that got chosen after being advertised on Facebook and Next Door,” said Grace Quigley, OBTC events chair. She noted such trees “usually are problem trees that are uprooting someone\u2019s sidewalks or needs to be removed for some reason.”
\nQuigley said this year\u2019s selected OB tree is about 40-feet tall.
\nMike James said the first tree brought down by his late brother in 1980 was “straight, tall and absolutely beautiful.”
\nHowever, for whatever reason, most trees selected since have been left-leaning \u2013 although, this year\u2019s tree seems to be curving to the right.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s entirely appropriate that the grand marshals for the 40th anniversary of the OB Holiday Parade, themed Miracle On Newport Avenue, will be the family that started it all: the James brothers of the James Gang Co. printers. “Actually, it was my late brother, Rich James, who started it,” said Mike James of his family\u2019s […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":259036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"The tradition continues \u2013 Ocean Beach Christmas tree planted in the sand","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}