The Christmas Truck: North Hollywood Did Not Know What Happened?
Whatever happened to the Christmas Truck?
Families in North Hollywood, California, and neighboring families may not have known why the caroling tradition abruptly ended.
The reality behind the sparkling lights, happy faces singing memory-making songs, and the dancing feet of the North Hollywood Caroling Christmas Truck tradition was all a farce – a big covered-up lie.
If you were one of the families in North Hollywood, California; Burbank, California; North Hills, California; or Toluca Lake, California, who looked forward to The Christmas Truck, this blog compilation will destroy your Christmas memories.
I’m sorry to tell you to repeat a cliche: “All that glitters is not gold.” Behind many wonderful memories most Americans have, there is a horrendous amount of ugly truth behind the creative endeavors of fantasy making.
Who knew the person behind the festive caroling truck was involved in harming minor girls, and his mother and her third husband, the church leader, covered it up?
WARNING:
For those celebrating Christmas in a joyful, peaceful family way, this No Non-cents Nanna suggests you put this on your to read or watch later.
Quotes and disturbing information are included in this blog, and the videos taken from YouTube will mention the Church of the Living Word, Living Word Fellowship, and Shiloh, located in Kalona, Iowa.
North Hollywood Christmas Cult | The Living Word Cult
With permission, the re-publishing will be done by the wonderful, brave individuals who are public OOPS! I’m in a Cult this post is sharing the gift of truth behind the the creator of the Christmas Truck.
WARNING! The content is complex and disturbing. This contains language not suitable for children. The videos contain “religious” content also found in cult-like organizations.
Premiered Dec 16, 2022 #metoo4,230 views • Premiered Dec 16, 2022 • #metooIt’a a clear quiet Christmas Eve. You stand from your window and you spy the most wonderful thing!
For 35 years the residents of North Hollywood eagerly made camp on their front lawns awaiting the Magical Christmas Caroling Truck musical parade! To some, this event, on the darkest night of the year, is “more important than Christmas Day”. Families pour out of their home and sing along as The Truck passed by. Drinks in hand they follow the Christmas truck and its trail of dancing “candy cane girls” up and down the streets of the San Fernando Valley. After three decades, many residents can’t imagine or remember a single Christmas without the presence of The Magical Christmas Caroling Truck.
This Holiday Parade recruited 150 volunteers including the dancers, the singers, the drivers, security, and of course Santa himself. Its sound system rivaled the Macy’s Day parade floats and definitely beat out even the most outlandish of the neighbor’s light displays. Bright and loud, the truck boasted that its creators and volunteers come from the Hollywood studios right down the street – Warner Brothers, Universal, and Disney. However the truth, that was not advertised on the 11 o’clock news, was that the volunteers and sponsors of the Holiday Christmas event were all from The Church of The Living Word in North Hills California.
In the weeks leading up to the event they trained in a recording studio owned by The Living Word Church in an industrial section of North Hollywood just under the Burbank Airport flight path. The money that funded the Magical Christmas Truck came from donations to The Living Word Fellowship. And the creator and inventor of the Toluca Lake Holiday Truck was one of the head pastors of the The Living Word.
The separating line that was intentionally drawn between the truck and the church would keep many of the neighbors in the North Hollywood, Teluca Lake, Burbank neighborhoods from knowing the absolute chaos that was raining down on the this Pastor and creator of The Magical Christmas Caroling Truck. One October night in the hight of the #metoo era, a former member of the TLW church posted a damning letter that tarnished the reputation of Rick Holbrook (the creator of the truck) and the heads of the Living Word Church, Gary and Marilyn Hargrave. After reading the letters, members of the church began to post stories of their own further dragging these three Christian leaders down into the dirt.
By the time Christmas came around members of the Living Word could not care less about the Magical Christmas Caroling Truck. This is only the beginning of the story. CREDITS: EP 1 – Magical Christmas Caroling Cult
This blog is not about the Christmas caroling of a nice, safe community of family and friends, as people were told.
The truth, in my words, is that the leadership or their adult children seemed to be creating a wonderful holiday tradition for the darkest day in America, but the fact that the highly controlled group of families and friends were silently suffering sexual abuse.
After nearly 80 years, the Church of the Living Word or Hargraves Ministries began to fall apart. How was property going to go back to the people? I don’t know. Many people lost what they were promoted to.
- Some of you readers are survivors of this cult.
- Some of you are looking at this blog compilation and video with angry denial.
- Some of you simply wanted to know what rumors are true or false about the beloved Christmas Truck.
- Some of you who are visiting this blog may have accidentally gotten here because you searched online about a family member suspected of being in a cult, and you want to know what to do.
For those who are in distress, please get mental health support. You are worthy of allowing yourself to tell your story to someone who cares and is willing to listen.
Your local crisis center can connect you with professionals skilled in this area of support. Figure out your next steps. A sexual assault service provider can help answer any questions you may have. They can also connect you with resources you may need, including legal and medical options.
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Directed By Scott Barker Cinematographer – Jackson Veigel Additional Camera – Scott Barker – Alex Ferris Editing – Scott Barker – Alex Farris Assistant Editing – Leah O’Connor – Shelby Stancliff Audio Mix – Dynamite Laser Beam ©Walk Doc, LLC Podcast Links: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast… Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2YlZeTi… Support our Supercast https://oopsiminacult.supercast.com/ Contact Oops! www.oopsiminacult.com eMail – oopsiminacult@gmail.com Instagram –
/ oopsiminacultpodcast More – https://linktr.ee/oopsiminacult If you or someone you know has a mental illness, is struggling emotionally, or has concerns about their mental health, there are ways to get help. Use these resources to find help for you, a friend, or a family member: https://988lifeline.org/
The crazy thing about Rick H creating a Christmas Truck to entertain his neighbor is that his stepfather’s church (TLW founder John Robert Stevens, the late 2nd husband of Marilyn Holbrook Stevens Hargraves) ) was told decades before that “Christmas was evil,” and church members all over the country were told not to celebrate Christmas. I know that for a fact – I was one of the children of church members in Washinton, Iowa.
Do you have any idea how any grade school child would be affected when their parents announce that the church leaders forbid them to get Christmas presents because all of their classmates celebrate a demonic holiday? (That is another No Non-cents Nanna blog by aka Malika Bourne.)
Comment on YouTube by aka Malika Bourne, the author of No Non-cents Nanna blog. (Pen name of a former member from 1957 or 1958 to 1983.)
The whole Xmas truck things seemed so disconnected from the “church”. Around 1960 or 61 it was declared that xmas was of the “devil”, “demonic” and “pagan”.. For the first 10 years of my life my family went to both sets of grandparents for food and gifts. – then BAM! all of sudden with no satisfactory reason we weren’t allowed to celebrate the holidays anymore.
That was a line that was drawn for me that secretly separated us from the Washington, Iowa community.
Not every family in Christian Tabernacle stopped celebrating, tho’. It was odd that the love of my life’s family still had xmas but he was not allowed to dance in PE. My mom said that square dancing was good exercise.
That point is that there was no consistency in the “rules”. Then, when the LA group visited the “sensuality” was inconsistent as well among Grandpa Stevens’s group and “Bobbie”‘s group. tho a number of folks were originally from Iowa families.
How One Woman Exposed a Cult | The Living Word Cult Series | Ep 2
“This episode dives into the most telling moments from Shalom’s letters, how and why she decided to post them, and the system of control the leaders of the church used to protect the abusers and silence their victims.”
In 2018 The Living Word Fellowship was hit with a sexual abuse scandal they didn’t see coming. A former member released letters showing that she had been sexually harassed and abused by the TLW leadership for years.
- Further, she showed that the church used their system of control to “shame, blame and silence” her for almost 20 years. Only when Shalom Abrahamson spoke out was the leadership forced to respond.
- What followed was an unprecedented exodus of members from the church, many of whom reached out on social media to show their support to Shalom and additionally share their own stories of abuse from the church leaders.
- This episode dives into the most telling moments from Shalom’s letters, how and why she decided to post them, and the system of control the leaders of the church used to protect the abusers and silence their victims.
- ©WalkDoc LLC Director – Scott Barker Editor – Alex Ferris Additional Editing – Scott Barker Assistant Editor – Shelby Stancliff Editorial/Graphics/VFX and so much more – Leah O’Connor Audio Mix and Design – Dynamite Laser Beam Camera – Alex Ferris and Scott Barker Podcast Links: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast… Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2YlZeTi… Support our Supercast https://oopsiminacult.supercast.com/ Contact Oops! www.oopsiminacult.com eMail – oopsiminacult@gmail.com Instagram –
Why did Rick and the church want to publicly separate the Truck from the church? Was it because we didn’t celebrate Christmas? But then why would we do it if we didn’t believe in celebrating Christmas? The Truck was a spectacular production that came at great cost, and at no point did we share with the neighbors why we put this huge production on or that we were all members of The Living Word Church of North Hollywood and North Hills. However, as members, we were pressured to not only show up for the 8-hour night of singing and dancing but also to donate, work, and train for the big holiday parade every year for almost 35 years.
Podcast Links: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast… Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2YlZeTi… Support our Supercast https://oopsiminacult.supercast.com/ Contact Oops! www.oopsiminacult.com eMail – oopsiminacult@gmail.com Instagram – / oopsiminacultpodcast More – https://linktr.ee/oopsiminacult If you or someone you know has a mental illness, is struggling emotionally, or has concerns about their mental health, there are ways to get help. Use these resources to find help for you, a friend, or a family member: https://988lifeline.org/ https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-…
“In this episode, we investigate what became of the many local churches and facilities within the TLW fellowship, what transpired in the days following its collapse, and the question we have all been asking for the last several years: Where is all of that money now?”
As a former member, I wonder where all the money my late father and my late in-laws ‘donated went. I’m talking about money that should have been inheritances left to my children. I know this sounds greedy. But family money had been amassed for many generations, with my late ex-husband’s children being the only great-grandchildren of a long line of hard-working Iowan fathers.
Church leaders lived like American wealthy while parishioners lived in poverty. Follow along on other No Non-cents Nanna blogs with links to other survivors’ stories that explain what we have revealed so far about The Church of the Living Word found by John Robert Stevens.
Disclaimer: many other religious organizations are unfortunate to share the same DBA church name. The organization I am sharing about has several restructured names but under the differentiating DBA of John Robert Stevens or Hargraves Ministries. Please do not confuse any unrelated group with this group.
Dec 16, 2024 Oops! I’m In A Cult Podcast3,586 views • Dec 16, 2024 • Oops! I’m In A Cult PodcastIn 2018 The Living Word Fellowship’s seventy-year reign came to end, collapsing after hundreds of current and former members began to expose years of rampant abuse on social media.
- Within two weeks after these revelations began, Gary Hargrave resigned and the church as we all knew it, fell apart.
- Facilities that were frequented and maintained by church members for years were soon left abandoned.
- In this episode we investigate what became of the many local churches and facilities within the TLW fellowship, what transpired in the days following its collapse and the question we have all been asking for the last several years: Where is all of that money now?
How many tax-exempt churches have convenient bars to grab a drink after worship service?
Living Word kingdom business workers used to say, “I’m under grace. I can do anything I want.” Well, in the late 1970s and 1980s, before I left the cult, I heard this a lot. And it disturbed me with red flags waving. Yet, I was called “crazy”…
…to be continued…
Disclaimer:
This blog is not intended to give legal advice.
This blog is not intended to advise on psychological therapy.
No Non-cents Nanna is written by aka Malika Bourne
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