For the past six years, the Festival of Lights at the Historic County Building and the Christmas parade on Rice Street have become a holiday tradition that Kauaians look forward to each year.
The Kaua’i Museum Christmas craft fair, which features only Hawai’i-made holiday gifts, has helped added to the memories.
Both events will now find their way into the homes of America.
New York-based Atlas Media will sending footage from last year’s event and this year’s 7th annual Festival of Lights event to the Arts and Entertainment Television Networks, which plans to broadcast the scenes from the Christmas events on Kaua’i nationwide. The broadcast is scheduled for mid-December, the exact airing date hasn’t been announced yet.
This year’s Festival of Lights will begin with a lighting ceremony at 6 p.m. on Dec. 5 by Mayor Bryan Baptiste. The ;parade starts 30 minutes later and will make its way up Rice Street to the County Building.
The craft fair, which will feature only Hawai’i-crafted goods, will be held from Dec. 5-6.
The Festival of Lights and related holiday events have become a premier holiday tradition on Kaua’i. They mark the start of the holiday season and a month of Yuletide cheer and mirth for thousands of residents.
The decoration of the Historic County Building for this year’s Festival of Lights has been an intensive but coordinated effort, according to Elizabeth Freeman, who is the co-cordinator of the Festival of Lights with Tevita Fonua.
The work has involved about 200 volunteers who have worked eight hours a day for the last ten days or so.
Between Nov. 12 to Nov. 14, firefighters, Keith Ruiz, Ralph Villabrille, Bobby Thompson and other volunteers from Oceanic Time Warner and the Kauai Island Utility Co-op helped string up lights inside and outside the county building and on monkey pod trees on the county lawn, Freeman said.
Fonua, who has overseen the installation of the lights worked with Freeman to develop a lighting design for the project.
And businesses like the Mark’s Place in Puhi, Fish Express and Subway Sandwich provided food for volunteers on those days.
On Nov. 15 and Nov. 16, 30 students from the Kauai High School Academy of Travel and Tourism program wrapped rows of garland onto the railings inside the county bundling, creating a tapestry and weaving images of Santa Claus and Christmas presents into their work.
“These teens from Kauai High are ingenious and have unbelievably positive attitudes,” Freeman said. “For that many people to work together and always willing to do more work is commendable.”
Students last year created gigantic murals woven on giant pieces of hog wire, and this year, those creations will be hung in the atrium, Freeman said.
The students were joined in their work by volunteers, including inmates from the Kauai Community Correction Center who hung wreaths donated by the Chansky family of Kapa’a.
Volunteers also meticulously hung covers made by Lehua Street Design in Kapa’a over the building columns. Norm and Lois Sims, mainland transplants who now live in Kilauea, also helped out.
On Nov. 16, other wreaths were hung and Christmas scenes were put on either side of the stairway leading to the second floor of the Historic County Building. The work was done by the Sims, members of the Hanalei Canoe Club and some inmates from the correctional center.
The Hyatt Regency Kaua’i and the Kaua’i Marriott Resort & Beach Club provided food, with drinks and snacks provided by the Kauai Beverage Company and the Big Save supermarket chain.
“Most of the lights are almost put in. The interior lights will be finished (last Friday), work on the outside lights, with help from RASCO Supply Company, is almost completed.
Freeman said she was overwhelmed by the “aloha spirit” shown by volunteers and businesses, and that the effort was “like that of one big family, an ohana.”
The Festival of Lights was created six years ago to preserve one-of -kind handmade ornaments and moving light displays that were handcrafted by Josie and Joe Chansky.
The couple began making thousands of their pieces about 30 years ago when they lived on O’ahu, and had put them on display at their home there during the holiday season.
They moved to Kaua’i and from the late 1970s until 1996, the couple decorated their home on Kawaihau Road in Kapa’a during the holiday season.
The couple transformed their home and three-car garage into a “magical Christmas wonderland museum,” according to Freeman. Through the years, thousands of adults, senior citizens and children visited the home during Christmas time.
The Chanskys were among the first Kaua’i families to decorate their homes in a grand scale to celebrate the holiday season.
But the home display came to an end in 1996, when Joe passed away, and his wife decided to sell the collection.
The collection included a Ferris wheel, a moving carousel and a Christmas tree made of 7,500 toothpicks painted green. The Ferris wheel, among Josie Chansky’s favorite pieces, was sold at one point, but it will be on display again this year, Freeman said.
Chansky and Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus will be on hand to greet people who visit the holiday exhibit at the County Building. All three will be there on Christmas Eve as well, Freeman said.
About 90 percent of the exhibit in the Historic County Building consists of items made by the Chankys.
The other remaining ten percent includes new items.
Freeman said she saw the Chansky pieces as rare folk art that deserved to be saved, and bought some and Josie Chansky donated the rest. What remains was then donated, and with the support of then Mayor Marynne Kusaka, the first Festival of Lights was held in 1997.
One and one-half months ago, a Friends of the Festival Lights, a non-profit organization, came into being to ensure the event will be well planed and held in upcoming years, Freeman said. Kusaka also helped with getting the organization assembled.
“Our vision is to preserve and perpetuate for generations to come holiday folk art that was created on Kaua’i, to honor the Chanskys,” Freeman said.
Dennis Fujimoto, the coordinator of the Christmas parade in Lihu’e, said up to three dozen organizations so far have pledged to build floats for participation in this year’s event.
“We have a dozen confirmed organizations or individuals so far who want to put floats in the parade,” Fujimoto said.
Among the big sponsors are Kaua’i County and Tom and Bonnie McCloskey of Kealia, who will donate 6,000 lighting sticks to spectators on the night of the parade, Fujimoto said.
The Lihu’e parade is a “carryover tradition” from days when many business areas supported Christmas parades.
“When you talk to people, everybody says ‘yeah, when we were young, my mom folks used to take us to this parade,'” he said. “Now if the kids today don’t have places their parents can take them to, what are they going to say when they get to our age. So, it is a basically a tradition. We just keep it going.”
The craft fair at the Kauai Museum will feature 60 vendors from all the islands, according to Jeanne Corbett, education/volunteer coordinator and craft fair coordinator at the museum.
The vendors will offer for sale unique craft products that include Washi paper items, koa clocks, feather leis, engraved glass pieces, knitted scars, wreaths and jellies.
Among the more well known artists or vendors who will put their products on sale are Kaua’i’s Irmalee Pomroy, Fred Tangalin, a fine arts painter from Kapa’a and Mary Lucus, an artist from the North Shore, Corbett said.
Linda Pittman will be creating Christmas wreaths on Dec. 6. Prizes, including a $100 first prize, also will b e offered, Corbett said.
An award ceremony for the best wreaths will be held at 11 a.m. on Dec. 6., followed by the culmination of a silent auction at noon, Corbett said.
The craft fair has been held for at least 20 years and is an event that people look forward to with anticipation, Corbett said. “It is a community builder. It is a happy time,” she said.
