"Search for an Inn,
A Christmas Celebration!"

December 6, 2003

10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Hawaii's Plantation Village
94-695 Waipahu Street
Waipahu
(Down the street from the Filcom Center
and the Old Sugar Mill)

DUE to insistent public demand, Hawaii's Plantation Village (HPV) at 94-695 Waipahu Street will be hosting "Search for an Inn, A Christmas Celebration!" on Saturday, December 6 on the grounds of the HPV. Everybody is invited to celebrate the spirit of Christmas with the islands' plantation life and cultural diversity through food demonstrations, panel discussions, arts and craft, live entertainment - and, most important, by participating in the "Panunuluyan," a street drama with roots from the Philippines reenacting the first Christmas Eve. Mary and Joseph with a retinue of shepherds will seek lodgings from house to house. Each ethnic house in the Village will serve as backdrop to this play, where the audience will be moving with the cast.

This year's "Panunuluyan" is written and directed by Professor Ruth Mabanglo. The play, which starts at 4 p.m., will be performed at the historically replicated plantation Village on the grounds of the HPV, in the heart of Waipahu. The cast and crew consists of students from UH Manoa, Saint Louis High School and the surrounding schools, as well as community organizations and church-based groups.

The day's festivities will start at 10 a.m. with a "talk story" on culture-based traditions at the HPV's Gentry Room followed by food demonstrations at 12 noon, and live entertainment and caroling by community and church choirs from 1:to 4 p.m.

After the street drama at about 5:30 p.m., the finale will be a Christmas tableau, Christmas caroling and the revival of the Plantation Santa Claus. Most of the docents of the Village, who grew up during the plantation days, have fond memories of receiving brown paper bags containing an apple, orange, nuts and hard candy. In those days, Santa came riding in a fire truck down Waipahu Depot Road. The children gathered in a sugar warehouse up at the mill to receive the brown paper bags. Marlene Hirata remembers the familiar holiday ritual of "blowing air into the paper bag, shaking it up slowly and sniffing and relishing the special smell of Christmas." This year the docents of the Village will be preparing these paper bags, which will be distributed by Santa and his elves.

The organizers will be charging five dollars per ticket for admission to the play at the historic village and to monitor audience participation. All the other events will be free, including parking at the HPV grounds. Food items, books, arts and crafts and the traditional Filipino parol (Christmas lantern) will be on sale during the event.

The event is funded in part by the City and County of Honolulu HTA/CPEP. It is jointly organized by the Indo-Pacific Languages and Literature Program at UH Manoa, Katipunan, Tagalog Association of Oahu (TAO), Filipino American Historical Society of Hawaii (FAHSOH), Filipino Association of University Women (FAUW) and Hawaii's Plantation Village.

For more information, please contact +808 6770110.