Tag archives: new year

Written by Sarah Ettman-Sterner Montecito rang in the New Year with glam, goodwill, and a dash of Monte Carlo flair at Mary and Bob Gates’ “Carriage House of Pepper Hill,” the beautifully restored 1916 estate they call home. Nearly 100 guests arrived dressed to the nines, stepping into a courtyard washed in blue and green […]

The Birth Center at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital announced the arrival of baby Isla at 4:41 am on Thursday, January 1, 2026, making her the hospital’s first baby born in the new year. Isla is the first child of her parents, Jessica and Laurence. She weighed 9 pounds and measured 20.5 inches at birth. While […]

Mellow. That seemed to be the word used most frequently when I asked friends and peers about their New Year’s Eve.  Other years have seen glittering, largely silly, soirées that wrap with a costumed walk to East Beach as the year’s first sun rises. And sure, I had some friends raging in the rain this […]

Here we go again, turning the page on another year! For us over here at the Montecito Journal, 2025 marks 30 years of publication in this Village of the Charmed. By our quick and approximate reckoning, that’s ~ 62,400 pages (gulp) and several warm decades of neighborly “gossip” over the back fence, public announcements, hometown […]

As 2025 comes to a close, the Montecito Association reflects on a year marked by active advocacy, community collaboration, and meaningful progress on issues that directly affect quality of life in Montecito. With strong support from its members, volunteers, and community partners, the Association continued to serve as an independent and consistent voice for the […]

Making prognostications about the future of 2026 is, I admit, a stupid thing to do. No one can predict the future. Those who say they can are mostly just lucky. But, what the heck, maybe my guesses are just as good as anyone’s. We will see on January 1, 2027. Here goes. Mid-term Elections and […]

Do you have a moment in your day that highlights how fast time is passing? For me, it is at night when I turn down the covers of our bed. It seems I just did this and yet, intellectually I am aware that it was closer to 24-hours ago.  Recent studies have shown that one […]

My editors invited me to offer my predictions and/or hopes for the year ahead. I claim no special talent for making predictions. Nixon and Reagan were fond of psychics, notably the Republican Jeane Dixon. Dixon gained fame by claiming to predict the assassination of President Kennedy. Sort of. She also predicted that Nixon would win […]

It’s frankly impossible to imagine a written document less likely to be read than a newspaper column on New Year’s Day. The original Magna Carta, maybe? Does that actually exist? Is it in the British Museum’s basement? etc.  But the New Year’s Day newspaper column must be written. Much more than a contractual obligation – […]

The thing about symphonic pops concerts is that while you need to be super serious about how the orchestra performs the music, you also have to recognize that pops concerts are supposed to be fun. This isn’t Mahler, after all.  That’s no issue with Stuart Malina, who will be making his local debut wielding the […]

No popping champagne corks announced the arrival of the new year in 1925. Prohibition still ruled the land. Nevertheless, Santa Barbarans could look back with pride to 1924 along with enthusiasm and hope toward 1925. The Morning Press headline blared, “Santa Barbara Greets the New Year with Noise and Church Services.” The dance floors were […]

As usual, tout le monde was at the New Year’s Day lunch thrown by affable gardening guru George Schoellkopf and international artist Gérald Incandela at their magnificent Summerland aerie. The tony twosome – who fly between their sprawling homes here and in the town of Washington, Connecticut – kicked off 2025 in splendiferous style with […]

Philadelphia-based South African conductor Andrew Lipke was in fine form when he led the annual Santa Barbara Symphony New Year Pops concert at the Granada featuring a mix of film scores, pop, rock and other hits, with Lipke even swapping his baton for an electric guitar. Symphony board member Robert Weinman returned as honorary maestro […]

Often I think my poor oldheartHas given up for goodAnd then I see a brave new face,I glimpse some new neighborhood..– Mancini/Mercer And here we are again. Another …. New Year?! This is a reportedly cyclical occurrence, begat by an explosion that, for reasons I’ve stopped trying to grasp, gave birth to both Time itself […]

January As 2024 unfurled along California’s gilded coast, Santa Barbara’s January presented itself as a month of stark juxtapositions – where celebration and loss, preservation and development, tradition and change played out against a backdrop of perpetual sunshine. The Ritual of Renewal On New Year’s Day, while most of America huddled under blankets nursing champagne […]

The year’s end always feels monumental – filled with endings, beginnings, stock-taking, plan-making and desk-clearing to create a clean slate for all the positive developments we hope will come along with our next giant circle around the sun. So, what do we hope 2025 will bring? More importantly, what are we going to do to […]

It was a beautiful 64-degree, sunny Californian day on January 1, as the 8th Annual Polar Dip, founded by our town’s Hugh Margerum, took its place in history with over 300 people from babies to seniors getting in the Pacific Ocean on cue at 11:30 am. The public beach on Cabrillo Boulevard across from the […]

The Montecito Journal is proud to present the first baby born in our town for 2024!  Congratulations to this new human, Eric Yang, for making his journey on New Year’s Day, and to his parents Alyssa and Seng Yang, of Lompoc. The Yangs are first-time parents and were happy to share a photo of their […]