Visitors come over three December weekends to look at colorful array at Buellton’s River View Park
For the fourth year, the Santa Ynez Valley Botanic Garden was the backdrop of colorful holiday displays over the first three weekends of December, as the Holiday Lights Festival was held at the garden next to Buellton’s River View Park.
On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sunday from Dec. 5-21, visitors could walk the paths from 5 to 9 p.m. and see glittering display along with the usual flora. Holiday displays were shown along with likenesses of forest creatures, butterflies, and mushrooms, among others — all in a wide variety of colors.
Lighted displays also covered makeshift tunnels to walk through as well as makeshift huts and tents that kids could go into.
And there was even live entertainment for anyone waking through the enchanted holiday garden.
On Dec. 20, the next to last day for the festival, a choir with the PCPA Youth & Community Arts program, based at Allan Hancock College, were singing Christmas carols on a temporary stage amid all the lights. It was one of a few programs the group were doing this holiday season.
“We started rehearsals for this, maybe three weeks ago,” said Samantha Nakagaki, intern for the Youth & Community Arts program. “We actually had three shows: One was an hour-long show we did at the Santa Maria Inn, a 10-minute version for the Rotary Club, and this 30-minute show that we’ll do for the last time tomorrow.”
Nakagaki said Youth & Community Arts is an offshoot of the main PCPA theater group which aims to reach the public.
“Our main thing is to come out to the community and do outreach, and just connect with the people,” she said. “Earlier in the fall, we did a local school tour where we did performances for about 8,000 kids total.”
In addition to the live performances from the PCPA group, there were other attractions at the park in addition to the lights, as food and drink was available with local food trucks set up, and a holiday market was set up, with local vendors ready to sell their seasonal treats and gifts. Also, Santa Claus was available for photos, and numerous musical performers got to play for the crowds depending on what night they came.
The Holiday Lights Festival was held with the help of numerous sponsors: Gold sponsor The Woods-Claeyssens Foundation, Silver sponsor Rio Vista Chevrolet, Bronze sponsors VisitSYV and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, and Ornament sponsors Discover Buellton, Nancy and Gary Brown, Mechanics Bank, Santa Ynez Valley Rotary, Santa Barbara Lights, and En Fuego Events.
