St. Mary of the Mills Christmas Bazaar 2017

We had our first experience of Christmas in early November at Saint Mary of the Mills's Christmas Bazaar. My daughter is a member of the American Heritage Girls troop there. Troop members staffed one of the children's activities--Beanie Baby Bingo.

Getting markers out for the bingo cards

Our youngest was excited to play bingo, which he had never done before. Stamping ink on paper he had done before and just recently he's gotten good at recognizing numbers. He was an enthusiastic player.

Stamp master

Even though we didn't win any beanie babies, he was happy to help clean off the board when things were done.

Working hard

Another activity was the Christmas Bazaar classic--photo op with Santa. The boy was rather cautious and shy around St. Nick, eventually sitting on his lap. When asked what he wanted for Christmas, he needed a little prompting. I asked if there was any music he wanted. My son mentioned Pentatonix, a long-favorite in our house (though we get their albums from the library). When asked about toys, he said, "a restaurant." Hopefully he wants only a toy restaurant and not the full-sized type.

One of us is posing for the camera

Still focused on the camera

We also wrote a letter to Santa, which was weird since he was sitting right there in the room.

In the hall, a table was piled full of items to be raffled. We wrote our name and phone number on tickets and put them in bags corresponding to the numbered items. The number one item (also enumerated "1") was a giant teddy bear. The bear was bigger than our boy!

Hoping for at least one full-sized item

Other offerings

Down the hall was the cake walk. Unfortunately it was off in its own area and didn't get much traffic. Fortunately, they ran the cake walk with however many people showed up. We gave three tickets and had the floor to ourselves, so one of us was bound to win.

Cakewalking

Ready to walk

My son did win, earning a cupcake which he promptly dropped, icing-side down, two minutes later. He was very distraught and I picked it up the best I could. He wanted the icing back on (otherwise it's only a muffin!). I managed to salvage some that hadn't touched the floor and spread it wide enough to make it look like a cupcake again. We went upstairs to the cafe to eat at a table. They were serving breakfast items along with coffee, tea, and apple cider. I bought ciders for the three of us. Mommy was off shopping at Granny's Attic, looking for bargains among donated items.

When she got back, we shopped at the bake sale for some after-lunch treats. We also bought some lunch--the various communities in the church had food for sale. We opted for the Jamaican chicken and rice. We also bought a bottle of wine at the wine raffle. A good time was had by all.

The main part of the bazaar--vendors, silent auctions, and food