Clearly, there was more to it than individual residents simply buying trees and decorating them for their front yards.

"Year after year I saw these Christmas trees in people's yards, and I always wondered how I could get in on that," he says. His own block of Shibley Avenue didn't participate in the tradition.

After some research, he got the name of a neighborhood organizer and learned how to organize tree decorating for his block. His tour of duty will start with the holiday season next year.

"I think it's going to be lots of fun," he says.

The tradition began at the home of Frank and Delores Badagliacca of Camino Ramon. According to Frank, he noticed three or four houses on Cherry Avenue where neighbors seemed to have coordinated their front yard decorations with trees of the same size. Inspired by the idea, he decided to try to involve all the neighbors on his street in a coordinated effort to place trees in their front yards.

So, beginning in 1956, Camino Ramon became "Christmas Tree Lane," and every December since nearly each yard is decorated with a 5-foot-high pine tree held in place by a 6-foot steel bar and adorned with outdoor lights. Traditionally the multicolored lights are arranged so that a white light is situated at the tree's top.

"That's to represent the star of Bethlehem," Delores says.

The tradition that began on a single street over time became an institution throughout Willow Glen, and in 1997, then San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer issued the Badagliaccas an award in recognition of their contribution to neighborhood improvement.

Delores keeps the certificate and the plaque that came with the award in a manila folder. She says there's no place for her to post it in their house. But that doesn't matter to them much.

"It just makes us so proud," Frank says. He said he'd like the tradition to spread to every single street in Willow Glen, though he said he misses the celebrity status that Camino Ramon used to have when Christmas Tree Lane was only a few years old.

"We used to get bumper-to-bumper traffic," Frank says with a chuckle. "We hardly get anybody driving by now."

The tradition has had its ups and downs. In the 1970s Frank and Delores' daughter Lori took over organizing the Camino Ramon area. Interest in the tradition waxed and waned for a few years, and ultimately Jan and Bill Nicolosi of Bramhall Park reinvigorated it in 1987 by purchasing about 70 trees for their neighbors.

The Nicolosis are still heavily involved in procuring trees. Bill Nicolosi said that this year he took orders for up to 600 trees for Glen Eyrie and Meridian, Minnesota and Lincoln avenues.

Nicolosi introduced Capell to the process. The tradition is more of a dynamic than a top-down, organized, neighborhood-wide program. Essentially, a handful of independent residents take it upon themselves to be "area" leaders who take orders for trees (normally priced at about $12 each) and buy them from a vendor, who later delivers them to one spot in a neighborhood. The area leader then distributes the trees and steel bars to any number of "block captains," who then help distribute trees to each participating residence.

"I'd have to say I've met with about 50 different groups of area leaders in Willow Glen since 1990," Nicolosi says. In some years, Nicolosi has received more orders than he can handle and has had to turn people away. But he said he's also helped area leaders beyond Willow Glen.

"We've even set up groups in Rose Garden, Cambrian Park and Almaden Valley. We even once helped a woman visiting from Florida start her own" block tradition, Nicolosi says.

Rosamaria Hernandez has been the area leader for the Willow Wood neighborhood in Willow Glen for the past eight years. This year she took orders for about 100 trees.

"It's not hard—it just takes a lot of time," Hernandez said. "But I love it. The goal is to unite the neighborhood."

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer Initial Roots: Mark Allison (left) and David Cash have helped install trees from the tradition's beginnings.

"We've had better years," Lois DuBridge said. She attributes the slow economy to some residents choosing to wait another year to participate and says that some may decline for cultural reasons.

Nicolosi said some residents have trees but don't necessarily adorn them with multicolored lights or even make sure there is a white light at the top.

Sandy Kasik is the area leader for the Palm Haven neighborhood. This year she took orders for nearly 170 trees.

"This neighborhood chose white lights because other neighborhoods use colored lights," Kasik said. "This is so people have a chance to ride around and look at different kinds of views, and most people decorate their houses and their trees with white lights."

Nicolosi said, "Some want to use twinkling lights; others might not. There isn't that kind of pressure."

Capell is looking forward to meeting the challenge and pressure of being a first-time tree organizer next year. He said that getting his block to join in the tradition will be a way for his neighborhood to reclaim some lost charm.

"It's getting back to old Suburbia, U.S.A," he said, "which is pretty much gone today."