Downtown Chico has virtual Christmas tree lighting ceremony

The pandemic forced the annual Chico tree lighting event to become a virtual offering.

Of 115 new cases.

The 42nd annual christmas tree lighting is another annual ceremony drastically changed by the pandemic.

Action news now reporter esteban reynoso is live in downtown chico.

Esteban, what changes did the city make this year?

One of the biggest changes you can see right away.

City plaza is empty right now and all that stands is the already lit christmas tree.

But no big ceremony, this year the ceremony went fully virtual.

"two, one!"

"it's a chico tradition, everyone wants to come out here and see the tree lit up and spend some time downtown, but we can't do that this year.

We still wanted to be able to bring some chico cheer to our residents.

So this year we're having a virtual tree lighting."

This year's chico tree lighting was all prerecorded because of the pandemic, to stop people from gathering in the city plaza.

"by prerecording this which we did over this week, we were able to add a little more production elements to this tonight's performance.

We had a drone that was able to follow santa who is going to be arriving on an antique fire engine."

Still some people feel they missed out on an important chico holiday this year.

"it's dissapointing, very much.

I sing in a women's barbershop chorus called sounds of the valley for sweet adeline's international.

We do the tree lighting and we go to stansbury, but with all this closed down.

We can't do em, it's like tradition is not the same at all.

That's tradition for us, that means christmas time."

And they are ready for the holidays -- to have something to look forward to during this pandemic "i love christmas, we have our decorations out, we put up the tree on thanksgiving.

I plan on sending our christmas cards, i'm going to spread as much cheer as possible.

Christmas is what we can make of it.

I spoke with other people here today that say they're throwing themselves into this christmas because in this pandemic, we all need something to look forward too.

Live in chico, esteban reynoso for action news now.

If you want to watch the full tree lighting ceremony complete with santa and his ride around downtown chico.

Go to action news