LIHU‘E — For the past seven years, the creators and supporters of the Festival of Lights holiday celebration have turned the historic County Building into a colossal winter wonderland. The event, which marks the arrival of the holiday season and
LIHU‘E — For the past seven years, the creators and supporters of the Festival of Lights holiday celebration have turned the historic County Building into a colossal winter wonderland.
The event, which marks the arrival of the holiday season and ushers in a month of Yuletide cheer and celebration, boasted Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus, a Christmas village scene, glittery garland and smiling stuffed animals.
This year, the event goes tropical.
Through a revised holiday theme, the “Santa’s Gone Hawaiian” event will boast glitter-edged lighted murals, including those of Santa Claus fishing, and of coral around which fish swim, a five-foot tall Santa Claus, a miniature “cane” train created by inmates at Kauai Community Correctional Center from discarded materials, and miniature Hawaiian hale (houses).
The aim behind the change was to give a decisive new look to the event, which draws thousands of Kauaians and visitors each year, said North Shore resident Elizabeth Freeman.
Freeman unabashedly admits to loving the holiday season, and begins preparing for the yearly event around October. She has worked on the event on her own in past years, and now works with others in putting it on.
The latest works will build on a Christmas collection Josie and Joe Chansky of Kapa‘a built over 30 years.
During the holiday season, the couple turned their home on Kawaihau Road into a magical Christmas wonderland, delighting generations of youngsters and their parents. They took on the task each year because they loved children.
The couple’s home came to be known as the “Kapa‘a Christmas House,” due to extensive lighting found inside and outside the house, and the showcasing of one-of-a-kind Christmas crafts, many made by the Chanskys out of discarded materials like soda-cap pop tops, old camera flashbulbs, plastic six-pack holders, and many others.
The collection included a Ferris wheel, a moving carousel, a Christmas tree made of 7,500 toothpicks, a six-feet-tall coral tree, a nativity scene, and other works made from recyclable materials.
The entire collection was eventually donated to Kaua‘i County.
All that is new and fresh with this year’s event will be opened for public viewing following an opening ceremony that is scheduled to be held on the steps of the county building at 6 p.m. this Friday, Dec. 3.
Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste is anticipated to be the keynote speaker, and will lead the “countdown” before the building and lawn are lit up officially for the first time.
Thousands of lights hung by county firefighters and others on trees on the lawn fronting the historic County Building along Rice Street will be lit up.
The ceremony also will feature caroling by the Kaua‘i Chorale and the Kapa‘a Middle School 8th Grade Choir.
The “Lights on Rice Parade,” featuring a multitude of floats with holiday themes, is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. this Friday, Dec. 3.
The convoy will make its way up Rice Street and closes ranks in the parking lot of the historic County Building.
For the Festival of Lights event, Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus will make their appearances on opening night, and will make repeat appearances at the historic County Building from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturdays, Dec. 10, 11, 17, 18 and Christmas Eve, Friday, Dec. 24.
As of Tuesday, “98 percent” of the lights, murals and Christmas craftware had been put up at the historic County Building, with the remaining work to be done soon, Freeman said.
The impetus for a change in the Festival of Lights event came in January of this year.
“As the students from the Kaua‘i High Academy of Travel and Tourism took down the creations, they suggested another theme, and I took them seriously and looked at every possible aspect of our presentation to see what might be revitalized,” Freeman said. She said she liked what was proposed, and the Hawaiian-holiday theme event was born.
The preparation began in October, and the work has been carried out in a storage room of the Pi‘ikoi Building at the Lihu‘e Civic Center.
Because of the near non-stop work by dedicated volunteers, the storage room has become known unofficially as “the Kaua‘i Department of Christmas.”
Parts of the room were cluttered with lighted murals that were either being worked on or were ready to be installed on railing of the second floor of the historic County Building.
Materials like paint brushes, glitter, and a bank of drill guns stood ready on tables to be used.
Freeman said she is particularly proud of the creativity, the dedication and energy volunteers have put forth to make the event a success.
Together, Gordon Soares, 29, of Kalaheo, and Chris Bessert, 30, of Kapa‘a, both inmates at the Kauai Community Correctional Center, who got permission to participate in the project, have worked tirelessly and expertly on one of four key murals that will be displayed, Freeman said.
Using fencing wire squares wrapped with green-and-silver-tinged garland strands and a single purple garland strand, the two men created an ocean scene with coral, around which fish would be created and would “swim.”
Soares and Bessert said they have been swept up by the holiday cheer, and have been encouraged by Freeman to bring a razor-sharp creative edge to the job at hand. “It feels good inside to do this,” Soares said. “I like seeing people happy and smiling.”
Bessert said he delights in having his imagination “go wild.”
Kim Miller, a creative-arts therapist from Kapa‘a who is helping out with the project, said the event will serve as a positive experience for both men.
“The project serves as a creative tool they can draw on in their future lives…to create that sense of joy and peace,” Miller said.
Freeman said the event allows the two men to connect with their creative souls. “It is their creativity coming to the surface,” she said.
Other volunteers had worked on a lighted mural of Santa Claus fishing from a boat. Another mural includes a Santa Claus dressed in a robe of red and white hibiscus made by Kaua‘i resident identified as Alice Buddingh. Another mural is of starfish living in the ocean.
Freeman said she wanted the spontaneity of the volunteers to come forth, without much push from her.
Some 225 volunteers came out for this year’s event, more than the number of folks who came out last year, Freeman said.
Among them were members of the Hanalei Canoe Club who volunteered to do the work as part of a community project, Freeman said. Twenty came out to help during one work session.
Many participants came not knowing really what to expect, Freeman said.
“They walked in at 8 a.m. last Sunday (Nov. 21), and I showed them four pieces of bare wire,” Freeman said. “I laid out a rough sketch, no color, and they took it from there.”
The volunteers came up with their own individual creations that would eventually be woven into the whole “Santa-Hawaiian theme,” Freeman said. In each case, the volunteers all came through with what was required of them to make the event a success, she said.
Freeman said she has utmost confidence in the abilities of the volunteers, although most are not professional artists.
“I trusted everyone really does have a creative vision,” she said. “I am a symphony conductor, and I guided only, and told them where I hoped to go.”
The murals that were created in past holiday seasons are to be used in this year’s display, but will not play as prominent a role, Freeman said.
The Festival of Lights has its roots in the Chansky Christmas house. Thirty years ago or so, the couple began making holidays pieces that would number into the thousands one day.
The Chanskys decorated their home when they lived on O‘ahu.
They eventually moved to their home on Kawaihau Road by Kapa‘a High School, and beginning in the late 1970s they decorated their home with holiday fare for the community.
The Chanskys were among the first Kaua‘i families to decorate their homes in a grandiose scale for the holiday season.
The Chanskys took on the task because they loved children so.
The Chansky Christmas house tradition came to a end in 1996, when Joe Chansky passed away, and Josie Chansky decided to sell the collection.
Freeman had taken her young son to see the collection at the Chansky house in past years, and because of her own love for Christmas from when she was a girl, decided to buy some pieces from Josie Chansky to preserve them.
She did so because she felt a great part of Kaua‘i’s history would be lost if the pieces weren’t saved, Freeman said.
To make sure as much of the collection could be preserved, Freeman arranged for the purchase of close to half of the collection. The rest was donated.
Eventually, the entire collection, with help from then-Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, was donated to Kaua‘i County for future generations of Kauaians to enjoy.
Please contact Freeman at 828-0015 for more information on the Festival of Lights event.
Lester Chang, staff writer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or lchang@pulitzer.net.
