Chris Smith: Santa Rosa’s restored Old Courthouse Square hosts first tree lighting

There looks to be plenty to like about Friday’s Winter Lights festival, the first to take place in the reborn Old Courthouse Square.

Starting at 4 p.m., the community tree lighting and holiday launch will boast performances by Taiko drummers, The Zins, Sebastopol Ballet, The Chordsmen and Ballet Folklórico Quetzalén.

There will be hot chocolate and cookies for the kids, tempting food and drink vendors, an ugliest sweater contest, a visit by Santa Claus and the centerpiece candle-lighting ceremony by Sutter Care at Home.

Watch, too, for sales of the clever and never more appropriate “I Believe in Santa ... Rosa” T-shirts and sweatshirts.

And find the cozy, colorful yarn bombs that Santa Rosa public-art champion Judy Kennedy just wrapped on every one of the square’s new bicycle racks.

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VINSOBRES is a winemaking village in the south of France’s Rhone Valley. Santa Rosa’s Heidi Chretien lives there three months a year, and nobody feels too sorry for her.

The people of Vinsobres were deeply distressed, though, to learn of the catastrophe that visited part-time neighbor Chretien’s other Wine Country.

“They all know Sonoma County,” said Chretien, who teaches art history at Sonoma State and Dominican.

She was present at a small concert in Vinsobres, which tolerates the fun made over its name, which means sober wine, when there arose a spontaneous outpouring for California vineyard workers who are suffering following the fires.

“I had a box and people just started stuffing it with euros,” Chretien said. Eighty Vinsobres residents tossed in 255 euros or about $300.

Chretien will see that it goes to those whom Vinsobres is most eager to help.

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PHYLLIS SMITH? If that’s your name, and if you mailed a note of thanks to the Daly City Police Department for allowing officers to come help during our firestorms, Exchange Bank would like to hear from you.

The Sonoma County bank led an effort to get thank-you notes to each of the more than 1,500 fire and police departments and other agencies that sent first responders to our aid. Exchange Bank furnished thank-you packets complete with mailing labels to locals who cared to send one.

Daly City’s police chief, Manual Martinez Jr., was touched by the note he received from Phyllis Smith. He wrote her back, and he included with his note a couple of gifts: A very nice Daly City PD challenge coin and a sleeve patch.

Martinez sent them to the only return address he had, that of Exchange Bank.

The bank’s Carolyn Cole-Schweizer couldn’t be more eager to get the card and gifts to Phyllis Smith. If you are Phyllis, do drop an email to Carolyn.ColeSchweizer@exchangebank.com.

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A MYSTERY that Judy and Jack Clark would love to solve is who wrote on a paper towel and left it inside their Santa Rosa townhouse that came so close to burning last month, but did not.

The note on the Clarks’ kitchen counter read, “We did everything we could to help you” and was signed, 8381.

“Is that a badge number, an engine number?” Judy wonders. Or was the number not related to the fire service?

The Clarks hope to know because they have no idea how to express their gratitude to 8381.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.