Brand new gardens (with many California native plants) have just gone in around the old North Hollywood Station. The palms’ fronds are still tied up, giving them a Seuss-ean air. We went to Groundworks Coffee, which now claims the space, for a Christmas Eve lunch.

Christmas Oranges: Up until about WWII, America’s children often woke up on Christmas morning, and rushed with excitement to find their stockings stuffed with California oranges and walnuts. Janet remembers this, recalling that her family would hang up their ordinary laundry stockings for St. Nick to fill.

Many of those oranges and walnuts, Sunkist and Diamond, were Valley grown and shipped to Janet in Boston, and to Jacks and Janes all over, from the redwood boards of this historic station.