Harbor Lights : Parades Will Twinkle With Santas, Surfers and Stars

A gang of Santa Clauses, some in red bathing suits with white fur trim, will cruise the waves tonight in the Channel Islands Harbor Parade of Lights.

“We’ll definitely get a lot of Santas on surfboards,” said Bob Carter, organizer of the waterborne parade, whose theme is “A California Christmas.”

As many as 40 boats are expected to participate in the 7 p.m. Channel Islands parade and the Ventura Harbor Parade of Lights at 6 p.m. Sunday. Each parade will run about two hours.

And while the two events have become Ventura County traditions--the Channel Islands parade is in its 26th year and the Ventura Harbor parade is in its 15th--participants create some displays that are decidedly unconventional. The Ventura parade’s theme this year is “A Star-Spangled Christmas,” which organizers said leaves wide leeway for creative interpretation.

“People do some incredible things with their boats, just like floats in a street parade,” Carter said.

“It’s pretty spectacular to see them all lit up at night against the dark sky,” said Lori Gasaway, an organizer of the Ventura parade.

The harbor associations, which promote the parades as spectator events, draw up to 20,000 people to the water’s edge. But many boat owners participate for their own enjoyment, often involving relatives and friends in a communal effort.

“For most of us, boating is the only hobby we have, and here we can build Christmas around that,” said Lowell Easley, 40, of Oak View, who expects to take 20 passengers on his sportfishing boat in Sunday’s parade. “The main thing is to have a good time. It’s a kick in the britches.”

Steven Odehnal, who lives on a 37-foot pleasure boat in a Ventura marina, is decorating his home as others do their land-based living quarters. Odehnal decided to enter the parade after watching the lavish Newport Beach Parade of Lights last year.

Boats in the Newport parade are laden with up to $60,000 in decorations. Odehnal spent only a few hundred dollars, with five other families pitching in donations in exchange for on-board seats for the parade.

The group has already strung more than 1,500 red, white and blue lights on the boat and mounted a firing cannon on its bow. Plans also call for unfurling five American flags.

While Odehnal adhered to the “star-spangled” theme, he was one of several boaters who questioned the propriety of celebrating a war victory along with a holiday dedicated to peace on earth.

“I don’t know what it’s supposed to be about, maybe the Gulf War and the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor,” Odehnal said. “It does seem kind of strange hip-hip-hurrahing for America when it should be more about the true meaning of Christmas.”

Dave Biederman of Westlake Village had no misgivings about stationing his grandchildren on his 53-year-old Monterey fishing boat for the Ventura boat parade. They will train flashlights on an American flag to illustrate the “twilight’s last gleaming.”

“I don’t think it’s strange at all with what we’ve gone through in the last year,” said Biederman, a computer engineer whose 30-foot boat will carry relatives from age 3 to 80.

Carter said the Channel Islands parade themes are kept more general to allow participants to use their imagination. Past years’ themes have included “The Carols of Christmas,” “Twelve Days of Christmas” and “Dickens of a Christmas.”

In judging the boats, development of theme scores most points, followed by lighting, sound, originality and animation of people or objects on the boat.

“We’ve actually had people suspended from the masts as Santa or reindeer,” Carter said.

Top prize at the Channel Islands parade last year was a $500 gift certificate to a boating supply store, with smaller awards for the winners of the individual, business and yacht club categories. Prizes for the Ventura parade had not been set by Friday evening.

Contestants in both parades tend to be tight-lipped about their decoration plans for that reason, not wanting to give anything away to the competition.

A Whittier couple entered in tonight’s parade interpreted “A California Christmas” as a forum to promote “Say No to Drugs.” A customs officer will have reindeer locked in an on-deck jail cell because the reindeer “said yes to drugs,” Ed and Claire Irving wrote in their entry form.

At least two boats at the Channel Islands parade will be decorated in California Mission style, with paper-bagged candles, pinata and mariachis. In contrast, another boat will display lighted palm trees, a surfing Santa pulled by reindeer, bikini-clad sidekicks and Beach Boys Christmas music.

As a variation on the same idea, a surfing Santa on another boat will be pulled by dolphins.