Westmont Hosts Tree Lighting, Santa  

Westmont kicks off the Christmas season with the 14th annual Christmas Tree Lighting on Kerrwood Lawn on Wednesday, Dec. 2, at 5 p.m. Following caroling and the annual Pickle Address, a mystery tree lighter will throw down the massive switch that lights a 150-foot redwood tree, affectionately known for the past 10 years as the Pickle Tree. The event is free and open to the public.

Hundreds of students, alumni, and neighbors will join the celebration, enjoying warm apple cider and cookies. Santa Claus will be inside Kerrwood Hall posing for pictures with people who bring a canned good or unwrapped toy to donate to the Unity Shoppe, a local volunteer program that helps the less fortunate in Santa Barbara. Westmont alumni and their children are invited to arrive at 4 p.m. for Santa photos. For more information, please call (805) 565-6056 or email alumni@westmont.edu.

A student band, the Ahh-Men a cappella group, will perform and lead participants in traditional Christmas carols.

Ed Song, philosophy scholar in residence, and Felicia Wu Song, associate professor of philosophy, will co-deliver the humorous Pickle Address. Felicia, who chairs the sociology and anthropology department, joined the Westmont faculty in 2013 after previously teaching at Louisiana State University’s Manship School for Mass Communication. Ed graduated from Yale, before earning a Master of Arts from Oxford and a doctorate from the University of Virginia.