Time & Again: Holiday traditions on Vashon

As the weather changes, the days grow shorter, and the rains begin, Vashonites have celebrated the holiday season in a variety of ways.

Across time, Vashon’s winter celebrations have evolved with the island itself, weaving together Indigenous practices, early settler gatherings and the modern events that now define the season.

The result is a patchwork of traditions that reveal how island life has shifted — and how much has stayed the same.

Winter traditions of the Swift Water People

December, for the Swift Water People of Vashon Island, was “the oldest month.” It was a time known as “put the paddles away” — a season when winter storms lashed what we now call Quartermaster Harbor, making canoe travel too dangerous.

The Swift Water People gathered in their permanent village winter houses and told stories that defined who they were and linked them to the larger Coast Salish culture of which they were a part.

Early settler celebrations

With American settlement of the island, local churches and schools developed in each community, religious services and school Christmas Pageants became the focus of community celebrations of the holidays.

As stores developed in each community, often at the local steamer dock, interior displays and later window displays became an important part of each community’s celebration of the holidays. Outdoor community Christmas trees at Burton, Dockton, Ellisport, and Vashon became the way Vashon communities celebrated the holidays into the mid-20th century.

Town lights and mid-century festivity

In the 1950s and 1960s, Vashon Town power poles were festooned with lights and fir swags that zig-zagged across Main Street. The 1963 photograph shows Puget Power crews installing the swags. In 1970, the Chamber of Commerce purchased the lighted candy canes that we still use today.

The original candy canes were all destroyed in the 1977 Town Fire, but a community effort to replace them and a gift of unused candy canes from the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce kept the tradition alive.

Christmas ships and islandwide events

In the 1970s, the Gallant Lady Christmas Ship cruised round the island decorated with lights and playing Christmas music on the loudspeakers to serenade islanders along the shores. The 1978 Beachcomber photograph of the Gallant Lady at the Quartermaster Yacht Club dock, with her lights ablaze and the large Christmas Star on the mast, captures the special look of that annual experience.

A parade becomes Winterfest

The annual Christmas Parade, now called Winterfest, began in the 1970s. Doc Eastly and his team of Shires (originally Russ and Al) joined in 1980, pulling the wagon with Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus aboard. Bettie Edwards, owner of The Little House, was instrumental in convincing Doc to drive his wagon for the parade. Each year she and her staff decorated the wagon for its trip through Downtown Vashon.

One of Doc’s fondest memories captured the excitement of the parade. A young mother, with her two-year-old daughter, boarded the wagon and told her daughter, “I rode in this wagon with Doc Eastly when I was two years old.” Doc’s last parade was in 2006, but WinterFest still continues.

Santa’s Cottage traditions

In November 1989, a group of volunteers constructed Santa’s Cottage at the Wells Winge Holly Farm just north of Vashon Town along Vashon Highway. They built the cottage so Santa could “listen to wee islanders Saturdays during December.” This 1989 effort began the tradition of Santa’s Cottage on the island that has continued for the past 36 years.

The Cottage was moved to its current location behind US Bank in the 1990s. Each year, letters to Santa can be placed in a special mailbox at Vashon Bookshop — a tradition that still continues.

The Deere Pond lights

That same year, 1989, brothers Bill and Harold Mann constructed their Deere Pond on Cemetery Road. Six years later, Harold — with help from family members — decided to outline the leaping John Deere logo–shaped pond with 1,200 feet of lights, including a red light for Rudolph’s nose. In 2011, working with Bill’s son-in-law, William “Billy” Hoolahan, the display was converted to LED lights. “It’s a lot brighter now, and it uses about a third of the electricity,” Hoolahan said. The brothers affectionately called the pond “Big John.”

Harold Mann died in 2015. Bill Mann, who helped create the pond, died in January 2024. The property is now owned by Mann’s nieces, and Hoolahan has served as caretaker of the Deere Pond since 2010, after Harold’s declining health limited his ability to maintain it.

While known locally on Vashon, the pond garnered regional, then national, and then international attention when a KOMO news helicopter was returning from covering an accident on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and the pilot saw the lighted pond from the air.

A bicycle, a book and Vashon magic

Berkeley Breathed transformed Vashon’s Bicycle-in-the-Tree into his magical saga Red Rider Comes Calling: A Guaranteed True Christmas Story in 1997. The illustrated book, by the creator of the Bloom County comic strip, told the story of a young boy who idolizes Buck Tweed, the “Red Ranger from Mars” and desperately wanted one of Buck’s “two-speed crime-stopper star-hopper bicycles” for Christmas.

Elves, Nutcracker and holiday giving

In 1999, the annual Blue Heron Dance “Nutcracker” began and this year celebrated its 26th year of producing the holiday spectacular. 1999 was also the year the Vashon Elves started collecting donations at the four-way stop to help the Vashon Food Bank during the holidays.

Twelve years later, in 2011, “The Vashon Elf Incident” took place when King County Sheriff Deputies forced the well-meaning elves to stop collecting donations because someone had complained that the elves presented a danger to drivers. Tag Gornall protested, “We wear flashing lights. We have cones in the street. We have signage.” But, to no avail. The elves were banned.

A tow truck and a Portage tradition

Lou and Paul Engles started decorating their 1942 Chevrolet tow truck with a lighted display in 2005. They had converted a Vashon Gravel dump truck into the tow truck but were no longer using it.

The lighted display has the truck towing Santa and his sleigh. You can see the display at their Portage location along Dockton Road. It is still an annual treat.

This holiday season gives you the opportunity to experience all of these Vashon traditions.

Bruce Haulman is an island historian. Terry Donnelly is an island photographer. This article is part of their ongoing “Time & Again” series, which explores island history in The Beachcomber.