4 Santa Claus and friends have arrived The Festival of Lights event is being held in the Langara Students’ Union building today By EMMA CRAWFORD corner and visions of sugarplums are dancing in our heads. To celebrate, students are invited to join in the Langara Students’ Union’s Festival of Lights today from 11:30 until 2:30 p.m. in the LSU building. Some of the scheduled activities in- clude making gingerbread houses, decorating gingerbread men, raffles and free ping-pong and air hockey. Eli Zbar, the LSU’s media liaison, said in an e-mail the event is being held so students can enjoy one of the last days of regular classes in a festive at- mosphere. “Student feedback has been ex- tremely positive from previous events,” Zbar said. “We have modeled this event like the previous, successful events.” Another reason the event is taking place is to raise money for the Vancou- ver Food Bank, Zbar said. Douglas Crocker is a second-year science student at Langara. He said he is planning to attend. “T will probably go,” he said. “You got cookies, I’m there.” Langara students Shanyne Noel and Amanda John said they think the event sounds like fun and they like the idea of free refreshments. John said she is most interested in the cookies.“I like gingerbread,” she said. “We might check it out,” Noel said. A few special visitors are scheduled to attend. “Santa, Frosty and Rudolph will be live at the event,” Zbar said. “They will be visiting the day care as well.” He also said the LSU will be promot- ing an environmentally friendly ap- proach to gift giving, and will be rais- ing awareness about this topic at the festival. The Festival of Lights will be the LSU’s second water bottle-free event. The first was its Cultural Awareness day a few weeks ago. Te: holidays are just around the DANIEL PALMER photo Woodward’s Christmas windows adorn Canada Place. By DANIEL PALMER obyn McVicker still remembers the magic of visiting the iconic Woodward’s Windows each Christmas with her family. As the director of communications and public affairs at Canada Place, she aims to recapture that magic this season with an intricate set of window dis- plays across downtown. Canada Place spokeswoman Laurie Purdon said, “On select evenings, we’re going to have Christmas carolers, roasted chestnuts, hot chocolate. So there will be a lot of ambience happen- ing here.” She noted the best time to find such revelry is on Fridays through Sundays between 5-9 p.m. The free event opens today and runs until Jan. 4. Onlookers are encouraged to embrace the season of giving and do- nate to the Strathcona Community Centre’s food security for children pro- gram, which helps feed kids in the poorest community in the country. “[With] every $2 donation, you'll be entered to win an all-inclusive vacation to Mexico,” McVicker said. The Woodwards Windows are scat- tered throughout various walking-dis- tance locations in downtown, including the original Woodwards site. “There’s four scenes here at Canada Place, the three Bentall Centre loca- tions, London Drugs and then the Christmas market,” Purdon said, add- ing that the event has attracted as many as 60,000 visitors in years past. To help you navigate the tour, you can visit the Canada Place website and download their mobile Christmas app. “They download it, they get the map and then they check in at the six loca- tions, and when they successfully com- plete it, they enter to win a $2,000 shop- ping spree at London Drugs,” said McVicker. For more information on the Canada Place festivities, visit canadaplace. com/christmas. DANIEL PALMER photo Visions of Christmas past will be on display at Canada Place until Jan. 4. Stanley Park twinkles for burn fund BRIGHT Nights info MH Runs Dec. 2 to Jan. 2, 2012 HM Open Sunday to Thursday 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday to Saturday 3 p.m. to Tlp.m. HE Entry by donation HE More info at van- couver.ca/bright nights Source: Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation Clockwise from top: Santa and Mrs. Claus pose for photos last year; take a walk among gingerbread houses; Bright Nights Train is one of the most popular attractions; the Grinch made an appearance last year. THREE SIXTY PHOTOGRAPHY photos New features have been added to Bright Nights which opens tomorrow. By MARTIN WISSMATH Stanley Park opens tomorrow with some new attractions. The yearly holiday event will be add- ing a new North Pole feature that in- cludes a parade of trees, and Santa Claus himself. It will use the location of the Children’s Farmyard that was closed by the Vancouver Parks Board in early January this year. “We have the main barn where the animals were,” said Ray Boucher, chairman of the Bright Nights commit- tee. “We turned that into the North Pole and Santa’s house. All the stalls where the animals were once located are now [filled with] Christmas trees.” Bright Nights is one of the most im- pressive displays of Christmas lights in Canada, Boucher said. “We put up over two million lights. There’s not many displays that can say they do that,” he said. Boucher is also a director on the B.C. Professional Fire Fighters’ Burn Fund, a registered charity for burn survivors that collects donations from the Bright Nights event. Boucher said about $200,000 was raised last year for the fund and he hopes to match that this year. “I know that times are tough eco- nomically, but if we can get in the ball- park [of last years’ donations] I’d be real happy again.” Firefighters from across B.C. volun- teer their time to put up the display, Boucher said. “Tt takes about 500 firefighters from 34 [local departments] in the province to put the display together and put it up in November,” he said. Bright Nights has grown since it be- gan 14 years ago, when an older display in Surrey had outgrown its location, Boucher said. “The Burn Fund was approached by Surrey firefighters,” he said, “so we went to the Parks Board and they agreed. So that’s how we got to [Stan- ley Park].” One of the Bright Nights’ most popu- lar attractions, the Bright Nights Train, which runs on Stanley Park’s minia- ture railway, will have a portion of tick- et sales donated to the Burn Fund. The rest will go to the Vancouver Parks Board. Entrance to the event is by donation. Ts 14th Annual Bright Nights in