By: Clare Buchanan
For the past two winters, I have made a ritual of stepping out onto the tarmac at the Hollywood-Burbank Bob Hope Airport. The City of Angels was my home for seventeen years. Around year seven, I grew bored of the city and yearned for a change of scenery. Returning every December feels surreal. I fall back into my old life here so easily, almost forgetting at times the entirely separate life I live eight months out of the year in North Carolina. Los Angeles is a long way from Winston-Salem.
The Verdugo mountains greet me cautiously as I get off my American Airlines flight and head to baggage claim. Winter is such a misleading word to describe the season in Los Angeles in mid-late December. When I landed, it was around 11:30 am and already 77 degrees. The Los Angeles heat is relentless, no matter the month.
As soon as I am within California state lines, I turn into a rabid dog who will not rest until I have eaten Mexican food. Foaming at the mouth, I find refuge at Lupe’s Place. My usual order is two carne asada tacos, verde salsa and guacamole on the side, with a bottle of (non-alcoholic) Sangria. Heavenly.
I wonder when returning to Los Angeles will become a simpler affair. I wonder if there will come a time when returning to Los Angeles for the holidays will feel voluntary and usual. I feel that with each passing year, I grow closer to accepting the city that raised me. Despite my turbulent relationship with this city, I have grown to find comfort in Los Angeles. I attribute my appreciation for pop culture, media, and film as a result of my Los Angeles upbringing. The dry desert climate I used to despise now comes as a welcomed surprise. Walking through the mountains behind my home, I find beauty in the chaparral landscape before me. The yucca, chamise, and manzanita trees look foreign to a person such as me, who has just returned from a state where the soil is rust-colored and the kudzu roams free.
Instead of cardinals, I watch quail skitter-scatter through sage bushes in the foothills. Quails have got to be the stupidest birds on the planet. They look foolish and act foolish. I find them to be greatly amusing as they run around in the dirt, searching for something they have no idea how to find. The quail is a fitting bird for the state of California.
After indulging myself with Mexican food, I usually head to Descanso in La Cañada to explore the botanical gardens and plant exhibits on display. Once unknown, Descanso Gardens has now become a tourist trap in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains. Instagram has ruined this sacred place as hipsters from Silver Lake have started to invade with their Chelsea boots and small children dressed like elderly British men who wear hats shaped like apples. But despite the popularization of Descanso, I return for the camellias, which bloom vividly in the winter.
Four generations of women in my family have visited Descanso Gardens. My great-grandmother and grandmother didn’t always get along, but they would find common ground in the Japanese garden, where koi fish as big as large ferrets swim underneath bridges made of cherrywood. Walking underneath the live oaks, I think of how my grandmother and I would walk through the gardens. She held on tightly to my hand because I was a rambunctious child and had accidentally fallen into the duck pond before, trying to catch a glimpse of a red-eared slider. My grandmother’s stocking still hangs on the mantle, but no one will go and retrieve it on Christmas Eve. So it goes.
A winter break spent in Los Angeles is not complete without a trip to the Los Feliz Independent Theatre. Los Feliz Theatre is located on Loz Feliz Blvd and is at the base of Griffith Park. For an independent movie theater in Hollywood, movie tickets are actually cheaper here than any AMC or Pacific Theater. The best part is that Los Feliz Theatre shows obscure independent, criterion channel acclaimed, and foreign films ranging from documentaries, Studio Ghibli animations, science fiction, romance, and dramas.
Photo Credit: Discover Los Angeles
After escaping Hollywood, it is absolutely crucial that I find solace in the wind-swept canyons of the Santa Clara River basin near Santa Clarita. I have always loved taking road trips up to Santa Clarita, not only because the town is my namesake, but because some of the old, spaghetti Westerns were filmed there in a little village called Newhall. Newhall has an excellent public library as well as one of the greatest museums in Los Angeles, the William S. Hart Museum. Hart was an actor during the silent era of Western films and owned a beautiful Spanish revival-style home in the canyons of Newhall. His homestead has now been turned into a nature preserve of sorts, one that is home to a herd of buffalo! Newhall is also home to a “Western Walk of Fame”, with stars on the main street commemorating beloved Western heroes and heartthrobs such as John Wayne.
William S. Hart Home and Museum in Newhall, CA. Photo Credit: Friends of Hart Park and Museum
Movie Magic! A mural in downtown Newhall near the Western Walk of Fame. Photo Credit: Public Art Archive
When I am in Los Angeles for winter break, I spend most of my time at my homestead in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains where Kokopelli chimes warn of the impending Santa Ana winds, in a strange place called Sunland-Tujunga. Sunland-Tujunga is built on the ancestral lands of the Tongva people. A Tongva revolutionary, Toypurina, was actually responsible for organizing an uprising against the Spanish at San Gabriel Mission in 1785. But virtually no one in Sunland-Tujunga knows about this, despite Toypurina being immortalized recently in a mural in downtown LA.
Sunland-Tujunga seems to be stuck eternally in time, in a decade I cannot place. Sunland-Tujunga is a biker town stained with apathy, where brawls, skirmishes, and tussles make up the majority of our community news. This town cannot be described fully in words, you’d have to be there to truly understand what I’m trying to say. I like to say I gained a lot of street smarts living here. I am definitely a result of the environment I grew up in, and sometimes I wonder if that is a good thing! But, beauty can be found even in the most polluted, smog ridden slums of Los Angeles. Here are a few gems located in my hometown, Sunland-Tujunga:
Bolton Hall Museum is home to the Sunland-Tujunga archives. Only open on Saturdays, it houses exhibits on the history of Sunland-Tujunga dating back to the 1800s. Bolton Hall is easy to find, for it is one of the only buildings in Sunland-Tujunga remaining that is built solely of stone. You can tell which houses and buildings in Sunland-Tujunga are the oldest based on if they are built from field stones or not.
Sunland-Tujunga is also known for its eccentric architecture. As is typical for Southern California, we have many Spanish revival-style homes that date back to the early 1900s. We also have homes that look like medieval castles and hobbit houses. Why? I’m not sure.
Sunland-Tujunga is also known for its numerous filming locations. Up near Seven Hills, the “E.T. House” sits at the top of a cul-de-sac. There is also an extensive film history attached to my former high school, where cult classics like Heathers featuring Winona Ryder and The Craft featuring Neve Campell were filmed, as well as recent TV shows such as Little Fires Everywhere starring Reese Witherspoon. It was not uncommon during my high school days for the hallways to be shut down during passing periods to accommodate Silver Lake circus freaks filming their latest interpretive short film.
Locals have termed this the “Hobbit House” on Commerce St. No one is sure who lives here because we have never seen anyone enter or exit the building. You can notice the field stones built into the foundation of the home, signaling the home is actually quite old. Photo Credit: Pinterest
Heading down Sunland Blvd, I usually make a quick stop at The Backdoor Bakery for their strawberry danish and a latte. In the parking lot of The Backdoor Bakery, I usually scan the cars to make sure I don’t recognize any of them. Then, I make my way in. It is absolutely essential that I don’t see anyone from high school inside The Backdoor Bakery. If I step inside and see at least one person from high school — I evacuate the premises immediately because for all they know, I have not returned to California, and I would like to keep that as the general consensus.
To round off my winter break experience in Los Angeles, it is of the utmost importance that I partake in one of Sunland-Tujunga’s most beloved holiday traditions: Drive Thru Jesus. Drive Thru Jesus is just what it sounds like. One drives through the parking lot of a local church, rolls down their windows, and watches the birth of Jesus from the comfort of their car. Church members dress up in their best biblical garb. The angel Gabriel reads from the Bible at his place in the sky (to give the illusion that he is flying, the angel Gabriel is chained to a tractor lift which has been extended and hidden by a very large white sheet that is attached to angel Gabriels’ neck. Angel Gabriel is then mic’d up as he relays the events of the birth of Jesus. Since this is a very difficult and physically demanding task, it is not unusual for angel Gabriels to be swapped out when necessary.)
A man dressed as Joseph walks around in circles beneath the angel Gabriel, usually leading a small goat on a leash, or if it’s a good year, a mule. A woman dressed as Mary nurses her baby in the manger. If there is one available to use, it is a real child. Other times it is a mechanical doll that gives the illusion of a baby from the recorded baby sounds that exude from the hidden speakers behind the manger. At the end of Drive Thru Jesus, one receives complimentary candy canes and a Bible.
It is strange visiting a place my family has called home for three generations, knowing that my grandmother’s generation was really the last generation who could afford to live here. Lucky for me, I have no desire to settle in Los Angeles. However, a sense of melancholia washes over me when I realize that even if I wanted to, I could not. The wealth gap has only grown wider here.
Dearest Salemites, if you ever find yourself in Los Angeles, I urge you not to take the city at face value. Venture off the beaten path, and explore the eclectic nooks and crannies around the bustling, metropolitan city.
God forbid you find yourself in Sunland-Tujunga, my best recommendation for you is this: “Just keep driving.”
Happy Holidays to you and yours, readers!
Honorable Los Angeles Mentions:
- Olvera Street (Right across the street from Union Station, an explosion of culture and goodness.)
- Little Tokyo (Home to the best sushi, boba, and ramen in the United States.)
- Galco’s Soda Pop Shop in Highland Park (Home to over 700 varieties of soda pop!)
- Warner Brothers Studios (Tour the lot where Gilmore Girls was filmed!)
The Salemite- Salem College's Newspaper 
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