Kauai 18th Annual Festival of Lights Set to Kick Off This Week

Photo Credit: Jim Shea

Kauai’s 18th Annual Festival of Lights, the island's largest holiday event, is set to kick off this Friday. 

Celebrate 40 years of Christmas folk art by the late Auntie Josie Chansky by visiting Festival of Lights and enjoying a huge variety of Christmas decorations including a Christmas tree made from 7,500 green toothpicks and wreaths created with egg cartons by Auntie Josie. Recent additions created by the local community include Kauai-style themed trees: SPAM, Hula Bear, Kilauea Lighthouse, Peacock and the nationally-recognized Aloha Recycled Treasures made from plastic water bottles. 

Other recent additions include the “If Can, Can” tree with recycled aluminum can ornaments and a "CD" tree with recycled CDs from S.C.R.A.P. (Scrounger's Center for Reusable Art Parts) in San Francisco. New for 2014 is the “Lure of the Sea” tree, created by embossed recycled aluminum cans and recycled containers.

More than 5,000 people are expected to attend this year’s Opening Night on December 5 at the Historic County Building. The Festival begins at 6 p.m. with caroling by the Kauai Chorale. Next, Santa arrives and leads a spectacular Lighting Countdown of the hundreds of thousands of lights that will illuminate the Historic Park. The doors then officially open for viewing of the interior of the Historic County Building and its illuminated Christmas decorations. 

This is followed by the Lights on Rice Parade at 6:30 p.m., a unique showcase of island lighted floats. Festival of Lights runs through December 24. Visitors can enjoy the Christmas decorations within the Historic County Building between 6-8 p.m. every Friday-Sunday. Families can also visit Santa and Mrs. Claus. Docents will be present to provide background on the collection. 

Visit www.gohawaii.com.