RoundUp: Light up the holidays
Don't miss this year's Sebastopol Lights Parade! Plus make someone's day, see the Graton Holiday Lights and Tractor Parade video, send us your personal essay, and thanks for all the coats!
Join the Sebastopol Lights Parade—or watch for it in these neighborhoods
Sebastopol’s homemade holiday celebration, The Sebastopol Lights Parade, will be happening this coming Wednesday, Dec. 18, starting at 6:30 pm on Belle View Avenue, with Santa in the lead. Want to participate? Just decorate your car, truck, motorcycle, or tractor with lights and other decorations, come on over, and join the light parade as it slowly winds through Sebastopol neighborhoods.
This gloriously unofficial parade was organized by Lori Jay in 2020 during COVID to lift people’s spirits. The parade has grown every year. Lori hopes to see lots of smiling faces and waves along the way again this year. See the details on Lori’s Facebook page.
Here’s the route, street by street:
Send cards and letters to local seniors over the holidays
Do you have some spare time to share by writing cheerful messages to local seniors? Are your children looking for a craft to benefit the community? Sonoma County Library’s ‘Send Our Seniors Mail’ program invites you to send positive cards, postcards, homemade cards, drawings, and encouraging letters to local seniors.
Mary Lockhart, Resident Services Coordinator of Senior Properties at Burbank Housing, said, “Isolated seniors are often without family connections and this small act of kindness lets them know somebody cares. Residents also share their cards with each other and the little heartfelt messages—especially those written by children— bring them great joy and laughter!”
But you don’t have to be a kid to get in on the fun!
For letter and card guidelines and the list of participating senior facilities, visit sonomalibrary.org/SendMail. This year, if you want to keep it local, send (or, at this point, maybe drop off) your positive letters and cards here:
Sebastopol Area Senior Center
ATTN: Send Our Seniors Emails
167 N. High St.
Sebastopol, CA 95472
Burbank Heights & Orchards
ATTN: Send Our Seniors Mail
7777 Bodega Avenue
Sebastopol, CA 95472
A new tradition: Graton Holiday Lights and Tractor Parade
Graton is loving its new, evolving town square. On Dec. 8, they celebrated in the square with the Graton Holiday Lights and Tractor Parade, the first of what will clearly be a new West County tradition. Watch the video here.
Wow, you guys have been coming through with coats!
On Thursday, Dec. 12, we published an article about Sebastopol resident Sarah Pratt’s work with the Redwood Gospel Mission’s coat drive. Redwood Gospel donates more than 5,000 coats a year to the poor in Sonoma County—both to the homeless and to those who simply can’t afford to buy coats for themselves and their families.
To help out, the Sebastopol Times put a coat collection box outside our office on Main Street—and you guys filled it up twice already! You can still drop off clean, new or gently used coats and winter accessories like warm gloves and scarves at the Sebastopol Times, 524 S. Main Street, Sebastopol. The last day to drop them off is Friday, Dec. 20. (Sarah is particularly looking for men’s XL coats, boys coats, and ski gloves.)
Sebastopol Police Logs, Dec. 2-8
The following are crimes excerpted from Sebastopol Police Department's daily crime log entries and listed at the time the alleged violation was reported.
MONDAY
12:17 p.m. Tampering with a vehicle (misdemeanor) at Murphy Avenue. Investigation suspended, leads exhausted.
4:14 p.m. Vandalism with property damage, burglary (felonies) and petty theft (misdemeanor) at Gravenstein Highway North. Investigation suspended, leads exhausted.
TUESDAY
7:48 a.m. Driving while under the influence of alcohol (misdemeanor) at Gravenstein Highway South. Suspect arrested.
11:34 a.m. Failure to appear in court after promising in writing to be there (misdemeanor) and served with an arrest warrant for an outside agency at Pleasant Hill Avenue North. Suspect arrested.
9:34 p.m. Driving while under the influence of alcohol (misdemeanor) at Gravenstein Highway South and Cooper Road. Suspect arrested.
WEDNESDAY
8:32 a.m. Causing an injury to an elder dependent adult (misdemeanor) at Petaluma Avenue. Charges unfounded.
FRIDAY
11:07 a.m. Obtaining more than $400 under false pretenses (felony) at South Main Street. Disposition not reported.
SATURDAY
6:37 p.m. Disorderly conduct involving alcohol and violation of probation (misdemeanors) at Weeks Way. Suspect arrested.
SUNDAY
9:25 p.m. Obstructing an official and assault with a deadly weapon that was not a firearm (felonies), resisting a peace officer, exhibiting a deadly weapon that was not a firearm, disorderly conduct involving alcohol and possession of unlawful paraphernalia (misdemeanors) at Gravenstein Highway North. Suspect arrested.
OTHER POLICE ACTION
The Sebastopol Police Department also recorded 227 other events requiring police action during the period, such as lost animals, assisting citizens, parking violations, foot patrol, traffic hazards and reckless driving.
Give a Sebastopol Times gift subscription to your friends
Give the gift of connection and community to your friends in Sebastopol and West County this year with a subscription to the Sebastopol Times. If you’ve got enough jingle in your pockets, give them a paid gift subscription. Paid subscriptions make it possible for us to do what we do.
You can also give your friends a FREE gift subscription to the Sebastopol Times, by sending their name and email to us at sebastopoltimes@gmail.com. (Also include your name so they’ll know who gave them the gift!) We’ll send them a holiday e-card notifying them of your free gift subscription.
The week of Dec. 9-14
And it never failed that during the dry years, the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years, they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.
— East of Eden, John Steinbeck.