It’s Christmas time in the Family City of Manteca.
It’s still more than a month away from the official red-letter day, but as far as the scores of families and individuals who gathered Tuesday evening at the Manteca Library Park, the arrival of the Capitol Christmas Tree Tour 2011 was the kick-off to the joyous season.
“It’s a great way to start the Christmas season,” said a beaming Dr. Richard Cuevas whose dental office is just across the street from the Library Park. The smiling faces of his wife, Richa, and their nine-year-old daughter Eva clearly shared his joy of the approaching holidays, and everyone’s excitement over the “historic event” taking place that very moment.
“This is a big deal; this is history,” said Laurinda and Ronnie LeMay who brought along sons Preston Avila, 5, and Lucas, 6, who both attend McParland School Annex.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Donna Moline who quickly added, turning to grandson Austin, 2, while pointing to the tree inside a giant box in the back of the flatbed truck, “It’s pretty, huh?”
The “really exciting part” of the experience, she added, is that the tree is being transported in a “big truck across the United States, and the next time we see it, it will be on TV!”
Among the thousands of ornaments that will be hanging on the tree at the national capitol in front of the White House will be decorations handmade by Manteca Parks and Recreation Kids Zone participants and by the students at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School.
It didn’t matter to those who came to welcome the Capitol Christmas Tree that it was contained in a giant box with only a few feet of its decorated tip visible through plastic windows.
Connie Finck said she made it a point to be there “because it’s the national Christmas tree; we never had one come down in Manteca, so it’s a big deal to come out and see it.”
Her next-door neighbor Fern Stewart had a sentimental reason for joining the crowd. Her family had camped out through the years at the Stanislaus National Forest where the tree was harvested, she said.
That was Jerry Johnson’s sentiment exactly. “I used to live out there where (the tree) came out,” said the great-grandfather who came with great-grandson Paul Tabernier, 6.
Accompanying the Capitol Christmas Tree tractor-trailer in its cross-country trip to Washington, D.C., are two other trucks – one carrying food donations collected along the way at the places where the caravan will stop-over, and the other filled with smaller Christmas trees ranging from seven feet to 20 feet tall which will be used to decorate various public places in D.C. including the Supreme Court, the congressional offices, and the national American Indian Museum which is the newest part of the Smithsonian. All in all, there will be 5,000 outdoor ornaments and 2,000 indoor ornaments collected from California alone, said Maria C. Benech of the 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree project who is traveling cross-country with the caravan. The handmade ornaments are all created with the theme, California Shine, she said.
The food donations will be presented to the city of Gallup in New Mexico during the tree’s stop-over there. Gallup is the third poorest city in the United States, with New Mexico as the second poorest state in the nation, said Benech. Among the food collected are a pallet of cereal and a half-pallet of Oreo cookies from the Second Harvest Food Bank in Manteca. These were loaded up in the food truck Tuesday night.
“It’s like a ‘paying it forward’ thing,” Kerri Tapia of Second Harvest said of the donation.
Making an appearance at the Library Park event with Tapia was Second Harvest’s turkey mascot whose mission for the evening was to drum up turkey donations for the needy at Thanksgiving.
A brief program held at the newly improved Library Park included brief speeches given by Mayor Willie Weatherford, Manteca Mayor Pro-Tem Vince Hernandez, South San Joaquin Irrigation District Manager Jeff Shields, and City Manager Karen McLaughlin.
Manteca was the third stop in the 24 California stop-overs for the Capitol Tree from Toulumne County. The first one was in Sonora on Saturday, followed by Oakdale earlier in the day on Tuesday, and Manteca in the evening.
Next stop for the traveling Capitol Tree will be Sacramento followed by Modesto and Merced. On Friday, the Christmas tree will be in Fresno where it will be part of the Veterans Parade.
ON THE WAY TO DC
Mantecans catch glimpse of national tree

