Sundar Shadi Holiday Display Canceled: Coronavirus

EL CERRITO, CA — The Sundar Shadi Holiday Display in El Cerrito, a 70-year tradition created and maintained by one man and now carried on by volunteers, has been canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"For the public health and safety of our hundreds of annual visitors, supporters, and volunteers, we must sadly announce that the traditional Shadi Holiday Display will not be set up this year," organizers said in an announcement. "We share your disappointment, but we don't want to risk anyone's health. We look forward to returning in December 2021 once Covid-19 restrictions on public gatherings are lifted."

The dozens of pieces in the display — handmade depictions of people, animals, and buildings from Biblical times — were created by Sundar Shadi, a Hindu who emigrated from India to study subtropical horticulture at UC Berkeley in 1921.

Shadi, seeing the decorations put up by his neighbors in the El Cerrito hills, started with a single illuminated star placed high on the open hillside lot he and his wife, Dorothy, owned next to their home on Arlington Boulevard.

Shadi died in 2002, a month before he would have turned 102, and volunteers have continued the tradition, which has been relocated to the PG&E right-of-way along Moeser Lane near Sea View Drive.

The display would have been installed over the weekend, but now only the single star that marked its beginning will be in place.

"We wish you continued good health and happy holidays and look forward to celebrating again with you in 2021," organizers said.

Shadi was inducted into the city's Wall of Fame in 1990.

Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. —Republication, Rebroadcast, or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.