You don't have to be a star, baby...

A few weeks ago we went to the PASACAT Parol Festival, held once again at the Jacobs Center at Market Street Plaza.  Many colorful star lanters were on display as well as for sale. This multicolored one made with capiz shell was going for a couple hundred dollars!

The festival also had a parol contest which had many interesting and worthy entries this year...


The festival included Philippine dancing as well as Samoan and Pacific Islander along with Spanish flamenco music and dancing.

As I mentioned earlier, this year's contest brought out the creative side in the contestants. This particular parol was made completely of recycled materials, which the guy said was taken from his work's recycle bin. He said it only took him an hour and a half to make this!

He used Coca-Cola and 7-Up 2 liter bottles, along with soda can tabs for the "tassels". The "flowers" were the bottoms of the Coca-Cola 2 liter bottle. I really liked how he did this.

The center of the star was a Kirkland Costco drink cup!

He ended winning second place!

Now this was another parol that was out of the ordinary. This was Bert's entry, wrapped entirely with discard 18 gage communication wire from his work. It was torn out of a building that had their wires redone so it was going to be thrown out anyways. He thought he could do something with it. It was fittingly geeky! He used blue and yellow wires for the outer star point and used red and yellow for the inner pentagon. To provide contrast, he used battery operated green lights that blinked on and off!

He curled the remaining ends of the wires instead of adding tassels. He was quite pleased with this considering he only paid for the cost of the wooden frame. The wrapped wires ended up making this unconventional parol quite heavy!

Bert ended up winning third place which also netted him $100!!! That was a surprise!

Here are a few of the others parols...including this gold raffia wrapped version. I liked the simplicity of this one. Having it monochromatic looked elegant to me.

This was another twist on the parol, using clear plastic instead of tissue paper wrap. The creator decorated it with Christmas stickers and as an added bonus, there was a "yoke" of sorts at the top. At the ends of the yoke dangled two smaller parols! So it was 3 in 1!

Here's another entry that also had a light feature.

There were parol making workshops in the back rooms of the performing arts venue. Below, multicolored sheets of tissue paper, along with glue sticks and scissors were available for those who bought a parol kit.

There were different sizes available - some were made (such as these) and others were not yet assembled. Those require more time and effort to put together.

Several weeks prior, Bert and a few other folks volunteered to pre-assemble the parols but gluing and tying the joints together.

Now for the grand finale!

Last year, this lady won second place. I guess that wasn't good enough for her, so she came back with this masterpiece, made nearly entirely of recycled materials from her back yard. Her parol was covered with dried moss. She also used dried palm fronds that fanned out between the star poins. The inside was hollow and featured the nativity, which is fitting, because parols represent the star that led the Three Kings to Jesus.

There was also a light that shone from ABOVE over the nativity scene.

Everyone oohed and aahed over this. When she brought this in earlier that afternoon, I told her (without knowing she placed last year), "Okay, you win!"!  I keep telling Bert one day I'll enter a parol in the contest. Can you picture a parol with black pleather, metal studs and spikes and chains as tassels? That would be my dream parol!