On the night of the 93rd Hollywood Christmas Parade, just as the floats and balloons rolled past the Church of Scientology Los Angeles Information Center, a second spectacle came alive beside the route—L. Ron Hubbard’s Winter Wonderland, one of the city’s longest-running holiday attractions devoted entirely to children and the promise of peace.
Each year, families pour into the wintry set—anchored by a 50-foot Christmas tree, a Santa house and dozens of smaller evergreens—hoping for the one photograph that will outlive the season. And on November 30, they arrived once again in waves, forming steady lines around the Santa house as the parade thundered by.
“This is an amazing place.”
More than 40 years after its founding, Winter Wonderland remains one of the few public spaces in Hollywood where holiday tradition, goodwill and safety meet in the same square of pavement. Locals turn to it for a grounded, unhurried moment in a holiday season that has become noisier, faster and more commercial with each passing year.
Winter Wonderland opened the very night the parade began, just as it has since the early 1980s. While marching bands, classic automobiles and character balloons delighted thousands along the 3.2-mile route, a separate kind of scene unfolded here: an intimate corner of Hollywood where children ran toward Santa rather than celebrities, and where parents—many newly arrived in the city—said they felt a sense of safety uncommon in Los Angeles.
In 1983, at a time when the neighborhood was struggling with blight and disinvestment, Mr. Hubbard donated a giant Christmas tree to Hollywood as a gesture of goodwill. Local coverage called it “a major contribution to Hollywood and a permanent part of the annual Christmas celebration.”
The original Winter Wonderland soon took shape around that first tree: a snowy set with a stage, a North Pole-style house and a backdrop crowned with the word “Hollywood.” Most of these elements remain recognizable today. A soaring Christmas tree has stood in that spot ever since, carrying Mr. Hubbard’s gift forward each year. The children’s stage still faces the boulevard. And the sign bearing Mr. Hubbard’s message continues to greet families at the entrance: “On the day when we can fully trust each other, there will be peace on Earth.”
For many Angelenos, that message becomes far more than a sign each December.
Alina arrived with her husband and two young children, both of whom immediately darted toward Santa. “This is an amazing place,” she said, “and they are very happy to be here.” She did not hesitate when asked what she hopes they will remember when they are older: “Their family, the magic of this holiday, the kindness and the idea that dreams come true.”
Though she acknowledged Los Angeles can seem unpredictable, the mood at Winter Wonderland was different. “I feel very safe here because everybody looks happy,” she said.
For Megan, a mother of five who recently moved from Washington, DC, the set offered something Los Angeles often cannot: the unmistakable feel of Christmas. “We don’t feel Christmas-y in LA like we do back home in DC, where we get a little snow and it’s really cold,” she said. “And here, this wonderful scenery just gave us a little bit of home.”
She and her children had not expected to find Santa himself inside. The delightful discovery was, she said, a moment that reshaped what the holiday could feel like in their new city.
Winter Wonderland’s accessibility—free, central and family-friendly—matters to parents learning a new landscape. “It’s amazing,” Megan said. “We don’t know too many Christmas-friendly spots here. It’s definitely great to see that there’s this setup.”
“L. Ron Hubbard was one of the most generous people mankind has ever known.”
From inside the set, a volunteer by the name of Halsey greeted families as they arrived—a role he has embraced for years. A poet and mortgage broker, Halsey sees Winter Wonderland not simply as décor but as continuity. Mr. Hubbard’s original generosity, he said, reflects a deeply held commitment to uplifting others. “L. Ron Hubbard was one of the most generous people mankind has ever known,” Halsey said. “All he ever wanted to do was help mankind, and this was one way he did it.”
For Halsey, preserving the set’s original look—the majestic tree, the smaller pines, the Santa house, the familiar backdrop—is part of the gift. “Tradition is important, so I think things should be kept just the way they were,” he said.
What brings families back year after year? “People who come in have a lot of fun—they’re full of smiles,” Halsey said. “And that’s what we’re trying to do: Spread happiness here.”
L. Ron Hubbard’s message of trust and peace, he added, resonates with families every season. “It gives people hope, just as Christmas does, because it’s a time of giving and a time of happiness and spreading joy.”
Winter Wonderland’s enduring draw isn’t simply nostalgia—it also comes in the zone of calm it creates against the city’s usual rush. Hollywood Boulevard can be crowded, commercial, sometimes chaotic. Yet inside the wintry set—lit by strings of warm lights, anchored by the massive coruscating tree—families find a space that feels genuinely their own—something the city doesn’t often offer.
This year’s scene was especially vibrant because of the scale of the parade. Tens of thousands lined the sidewalks as 5,000 participants made their way along the route—among them 85 celebrities, seven award-winning marching bands, and beloved “movie cars” including the Back to the Future DeLorean and Ghostbusters’ ECTO-1. The nearby In-N-Out Burger truck served free meals to police, volunteers and VIPs, its supervisor explaining that the fast-food chain’s motivation was simple: “Making everyone happy, taking care of them!”
The air was cold and clear, and the night carried the rarest of Los Angeles moods: collective ease.
Families drifting from the parade toward Winter Wonderland brought that spirit with them. Children still buzzed from the sight of a five-story balloon of Captain Tom Bristol—the protagonist of Mr. Hubbard’s pirate adventure Under the Black Ensign—drifting above the boulevard. Parents smiled from shared moments with strangers pressed shoulder to shoulder along the barricades.
In a city often defined by transience, Winter Wonderland has become an anchor. It is centrally located, recognizable and generational—parents who visited as children now return with children of their own. Its endurance through decades of neighborhood change, renaming, redevelopment and modernization speaks to something Angelenos quietly want: a place where holidays still feel like holidays.
And its purpose has never drifted. Mr. Hubbard intended the set as a message of peace and trust, and those values continue to shape the space—through volunteers like Halsey, through families forming memories in front of the towering tree, and through the atmosphere that greets each child approaching Santa. Its continuity has allowed Winter Wonderland to become part of the broader emotional fabric of Los Angeles during the holidays.
For families like Megan’s and Alina’s, for volunteers like Halsey, and for the thousands passing through on parade night, Winter Wonderland does more than decorate a corner of Hollywood. It offers a small but vivid argument that joy, peace and trust are not abstractions—they are conditions people can choose to create together, even in a city as complex and sprawling as Los Angeles.
As Hollywood prepares for another year of growth, change and reinvention, Winter Wonderland stands resolutely unchanged—still offering its 50-foot beacon of light, still welcoming children who believe in magic, and still reminding the city of Mr. Hubbard’s promise: that peace grows wherever trust lives.
And as long as families keep finding their way to that sparkling set beside the parade route, Winter Wonderland seems destined to remain what it has always been: a small corner of Hollywood where joy endures, memory deepens and the season’s truest purpose lives on.
