Holiday Tradition : Huge Crowd Turns Out for Ventura Street Festival

Eliseo Alaniz has three secrets for getting people to eat tamales: wear a funny outfit, shout “Tamales!” in a loud but scratchy voice and laugh a lot.

Alaniz knows his methods work. The 46-year-old Ventura resident has been wooing customers to his church’s tamale booth during the city’s Holiday Street Festival for more than a decade.

About 500 artisans sold their wares to as many as 40,000 shoppers who clogged Main Street between Ventura Avenue and Fir Street on Sunday during the event’s 23rd year.

Main Street shops and restaurants threw open their doors. Vendors in booths sold everything from bonsai trees to quilts to birdhouses with roofs made from license plates.

And 30 food booths peddled an international sampling of cuisine, including sausages, Danish abelskiver pastries and, of course, tamales.

For Alaniz, the festival is steeped in tradition. His wife, Sara, uses a hodgepodge of generations-old family recipes to create what he believes to be the ultimate tamale.

Women from their church, Apostolic Assembly Foundation of Life Center in Ventura, sell them. A boisterous Alaniz, wrapped in tinsel with Christmas bulbs hanging off his hat, attracts the customers.

“Everybody’s having fun, so I have to have fun, too,” he said. “People keep coming back year after year.”

Musicians churned out every sort of Christmas tune imaginable on several small stages. Children rode in mock rail cars pulled by a John Deere tractor through Mission Park. And dog owners tied Santa hats onto the dachshunds and poodles that scattered among legs in the crowds.

Mel and Judy Swope took a break from unpacking boxes in their new Ventura home to kick back at the festival. They said they moved from Los Angeles this week to enjoy Ventura’s slower pace.

“It’s really an old-fashioned city,” said Judy Swope, 57. “You wouldn’t find a street fair like this in L.A. I’m always amazed by the creativity and what people will buy.”

Kathy Williams, 66, said she drags her husband, Ken, to the festival every year. The Ojai couple collect ideas for their garden from scores of craft booths.

Ken Williams, who is also 66 and retired from the oil industry, usually spots a few items and says, “I could do that.”

This year, the couple purchased a wooden street lamp to stand in their garden. Ken Williams plans to make more of them on his own.

“He’s a reluctant husband, but comes almost every year,” Kathy Williams said.

“I’m forced into it,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a nice one this time.”

Tom Crets, 53, of Rancho Cucamonga saw brisk sales of the miniature dioramas he’s fashioned for nearly 25 years. Crets builds miniature furniture--stoves, tables, shelves, chairs--all assembled in a tiny vignette of early Americana. He had sold about 20 of them by midday. “I build high-rises for a living. This is what I do to relax,” he said. “I go the opposite direction; I go small.” But, despite a huge turnout, the holiday event wasn’t without its snags. Shop owners in the Zander Building in the 400 block of Main grumbled Sunday after an apparent power struggle between competing Santas.

Gift shop owner Heather Wilhelm, 43, as well as several other merchants stationed their Mr. and Mrs. Claus in front of the building to lure customers into their stores, which have their entrances off the street.

Only problem was, the festival had already hired an official Santa who was listening to children’s Christmas wishes just up the street.

“Now how does mom explain that?” asked Kathy Bowman, 42, who coordinated the festival for the city. “I didn’t want to confuse the children.”

Another problem: The outfit worn by Mrs. Claus, who was portrayed by Wilhelm’s 18-year-old niece, Lacie, was definitely too skimpy for the North Pole.

Heather Wilhelm said the costume was so provocative that it--and the fact there were dual Santas--prompted police and event officials to ask Mr. and Mrs. Claus to move inside the building.

Wilhelm blamed the incident for her shop’s slow sales. “I’ve got $70 in that . . . outfit,” she said.

For the most part, the Santa flap went unnoticed among shoppers. There were too many other things to look at, including groups of singing elementary school students, children dressed as shepherds promoting their church Christmas pageants, and an array of political booths, including those promoting environmental groups and candidates for county supervisor.

“We always look forward to this,” said Janelle Burns, 49, who was shopping with her sons.

The two boys, Mike, 15, and Brian, 13, seemed willing participants in their mother’s Christmas shopping. Mike rolled up his sleeve to let a fresh henna tattoo dry on his biceps.

“You can get almost anything here,” he said.