Buying Into Holiday Spirit : Thousands Visit Street Festival in Ventura to Shop for Gifts

Two giant cardboard lollipops in his right hand and a wallet full of cash in his pocket, Clarence Dobbe of Ventura was searching for the ideal Christmas present.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” the 64-year-old machine shop worker said as his wife, Betty, wandered up from a nearby crafts booth. “So we’ll collect each other and start all over again.”

The Dobbes were among the thousands of people who flooded Ventura’s downtown Sunday to shop at the 18th annual Holiday Street Festival, an arts and crafts fair that stretches along six blocks of Main Street.

“We come every year,” said Betty Dobbe, 60. “We bring our whole family.”

Organizers called the festival a success, despite overcast skies and the daylong threat of rain. About 450 artisans offered everything from wind chimes and jewelry to handmade clown figures and crystal wands.

“Year after year we get these crowds,” said Faye Campbell, fair director and special events coordinator for the city of Ventura, which hosted the event.

“The people just love these street fairs,” Campbell said. “They love to shop; they run into friends and they can munch out.”

At the food booth run by the Buena High School marching band, volunteers wearing red Santa caps dispensed funnel cake and nachos to hungry shoppers to raise money for a musical competition in Calgary, Canada, next year.

“Business has been brisk,” said Janna Valenzuela, whose daughter, Maddie, plays in the band. “They’re mostly buying the funnel cake. It’s very sinful because it’s fried, it’s got whipped cream, fruit toppings and powdered sugar. They’re wonderful.”

Marilyn Clark of Ventura started cruising Main Street at 11 a.m., when the street fair got under way. She brought her 11-year-old daughter, Sara, and their next-door neighbor, Carolyn Kleider, 10.

Both young girls wore freshly painted faces and T-shirts emblazoned with the street fair logo.

“They came this morning and decorated the stages, so they got free shirts,” Clark said.

Sara and Carolyn proudly displayed their sole purchases: $5 bottles filled with colored sand.

“We got to fill them up ourselves,” Carolyn said, licking the last of her chocolate-dipped cone. “I got all the good colors. I’m going to put it in a box and wrap it for Christmas.”

Geraldine Doughty of La Mirada makes about 80 musical clowns a week, dressing them up in colorful clothes and selling them at street fairs like the one in Ventura for $27 to $30 each.

“They’ll play 10,000 times, and (customers) get to pick out whatever tune they want,” the vendor said. “Everybody likes a clown. Everybody likes to be happy.”

Near the corner of Main and Chestnut streets, Ventura homemaker Wendy Raines was struggling with several bags of arts and crafts.

“We already made one trip to the car,” she said, looking down at the bags filled with wreaths made from dried flowers. “We spent well over $100.”

Her mother, Barbara Geyer, piped in quickly: “Add another $100 for the food. We’ve been eating since we got here.”

Parting with the money did not bother Geyer, who said she shops at the downtown street fair every year.

“This stuff is homemade,” she said, pointing to a $22 basket of dried flowers. “People go to a lot of trouble to do this. And there’s a real Christmas spirit here.”