In fire-ravaged Coffey Park, residents put up Christmas trees where houses stood

When 30-year-old Hilary Arriaga and her husband first returned to the rubble-covered lot in the Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa where the rental they lived in for four years once stood, it was too hard for her to do anything but watch while he sifted through the ashes.

"I couldn't even do it," she said. "I was so emotionally drained already."

She recently came back to the lot for a second time since the North Bay fires, this time for a bittersweet reason — to put up a tiny Christmas tree.

Samantha Eggert put up a tree where her home in Coffey Park used to be. Samantha Eggert put up a tree where her home in Coffey Park used to be. Photo: Samantha Eggert Photo: Samantha Eggert Image 1 of / 42 Caption Close In fire-ravaged Coffey Park, residents put up Christmas trees where houses stood 1 / 42 Back to Gallery

With her parents recently deceased and the fires destroying many of the Christmas heirlooms they'd left behind, Arriaga is working hard to try to make the season festive for her daughter, who will turn two in February. The task is a daunting one at times.

"I want her to have the photos to look back on. We're going and doing fun stuff to keep our minds off of the depressing places," she said. "But it's obviously hard, and with everything that's happened it's harder to be present."

In Coffey Park, where many blocks of houses were burned to the ground during the fires in October, some residents and former residents are determined to get into the holiday spirit despite everything they've lost, erecting Christmas trees and other symbols of cheer on the charred lots where their homes used to be. Arriaga's neighbor recently put up a wreath, she said.

"It's a bittersweet, weird juxtaposition – the trees are beautiful, it's such a beautiful thing, but at the same time there's all the destruction around it," she said. "I kinda like that. It's a metaphor for life."

Christmas cheer reigned in unexpected places amid the rubble in recent weeks — a mantle, the only part of one house left standing, was hung with three bright red Christmas stockings, and a fully lit tree shone in the bed of a flatbed truck.

Some of the decorating efforts have been spearheaded by Ronnie Duvall, a Red Cross volunteer and construction manager who hopes to get a Santa and sleigh in Coffey Park to transport kids up and down the street, KTVU reported. Duvall is coordinating volunteers through the Christmas in Coffey Park Facebook group.

"It's emotional," Duvall told KTVU. "They cry, it makes me cry."

"It just kind of gives me a little of the holidays that I won't be able to do on my own," said Nicole Medeiros, who can't get a tree this year because she is spending Christmas in a motel after her home of 17 years was destroyed in the fires.

For some who lived in the fire-ravaged neighborhood, the trees have become a symbol of resiliency as they work to find a new normal.

"You want to be in the spirit, but at the same time, you're just trying to get your life back together" said Arriaga. "The whole tree thing going on in the neighborhood, I thought that was a really cool way to show that this isn't going to break us."

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter