When it comes to Santa’s workshop, ingenuity is the name of the game and Saanich elves are busy at work.

At Saanich municipal hall, engineer Mark Cawsey put his creative skills to work, building decorations from scratch.

“We were just humming and hawing and seeing what else we could add to the building,” said Cawsey. “We have a big commercial Christmas catalogue with lights and different garlands ... selling this stuff for ($5,000 or $6,000) which is not in our budget”

Instead, he volunteered to make the same decorations out of PVC piping.

The result was a giant bow, strung with lights, and five Christmas bells.

Over at Galey’s farm, the art of recycling is taken to a new height.

David Grey called himself the animator for all of Galey’s mechanical people, animals and other contraptions.

“I just go around the farm with a truck and see what I can put together and weld it all together and voila!” said Grey.

These days, he’s turned his attentions to a motorized ferris wheel for the farm’s upcoming Christmas attraction, called Holiday Magic.

Sitting in the corner of the warehouse, an unfinished ferris wheel moves in slow circles powered by a low-speed motor. On every rotating seat sits three stuffed animals framed by an evergreen wreath. Beside the wheel, a giant crate houses a dozen elves wearing green outfits.

“I make the heads out of clay (using) latex liquid rubber,” said Grey, starting to explain his technique before the farm’s owner Rob Galey interrupts.

“We make them in-house,” Galey said, jokingly covering Grey’s mouth. “Next you’re going to give away the recipe for Great Grandma’s secret brownies.”

Before the opening of Holiday Magic, Grey will pose all the elves, with tools in hand, along a conveyer belt moving toys.

“The entire ghost town (and) train tunnel is being animated and a mile of track is being illuminated,” said Galey.

Holiday Magic is in its third and last year -- if it doesn’t manage to yield a profit for the first time, he said.

In 2006, storms tore down the decorations and kept visitors away. The following year brought many more people, though not enough to compensate for the cost of LED lights.

This year, Galey has lowered admission price with the hope of attracting 10,000 people.

“The bottom line is our train (can pull) 120 people every 20 minutes, so why not have it full?”

rholmen@saanichnews.com

Check it out

• Saanich Winter Lights Festival happens at the Municipal Hall on Saturday (Nov. 29) from 5-9 p.m.

• Galey’s Holiday Magic runs Dec. 11-28 from 5-9 p.m. nightly. The attraction will be shut Dec. 24 and 25.