KP church offers Christmas bazaar in November

Key Peninsula’s holiday season starts the Saturday before Thanksgiving at Key Peninsula Lutheran Church in Lakebay.

That’s the day of the church’s seventh annual Christmas bazaar.

The event starts at 9 a.m. with a free breakfast. Doors open for the bazaar at 9:30.

According to Kay Pinter, chair of the event, proceeds support the church’s community outreach programs.

The halls will be decked out in holiday finery and there will be five tables laden with handcrafted items and edible goodies.

The Italian Kitchen table will feature pasta, aprons, cutting boards and various pasta-serving accessories.

The Go Team table will be filled with hats, scarves, bears, lap blankets and tailgate gear for the Seahawks and local sports teams.

On the Enchanted Forest table, shoppers will find fairy houses and thrones, dolls, tiny trees and other enchanting objects.

For lovers of all things vintage, the Vintage table will be piled high with hydrangea wreaths, ornaments, linens and assorted collectables that harken back to bygone days.

“And we’ll also have a huge baked goods table,” Pinter said. “We call it the Scandia table and it will have all kinds of Scandinavian and German and local Christmas goodies.”

“We’ll even have homemade lefse,” added Deana Hoffer, another volunteer. “The holiday baked goods are always a big draw.”

Hoffer is more or less in charge of decorating for the event. “It will be set up like a boutique, with two 7-foot Christmas trees on display and lots of other holiday-type décor,” she said.

One of the trees will have a “Stars Were Gleaming, Angels Singing” theme with handcrafted star ornaments and angels crafted from scrap fabric and trim.

The other tree, called “In Wond’ring Awe,” depicts a forest scene of native animals that come to gaze at the bright star in the east.

KP resident and church member Jim Davis has donated a handcrafted cedar potting bench, which will be raffled off during the bazaar, said volunteer Julie Johnson.

There are even things for pets.

The volunteers emphasized that all the items for sale at the bazaar will be very affordable.

“Most of the items are under $30,” Hoffer said. “And just about everything is handmade.”

Over the years, the date of the bazaar has changed.

“We originally did it the first Saturday in December,” Johnson said. “But it got to be just too much work right after Thanksgiving and that close to Christmas, so we changed it to November because if you want things for your Christmas decorating, you can come here and get special items before you start decorating.”

The name of the event also has changed.

“We used to call it the ‘Holiday’ Bazaar,” Pinter said. “But this year we’re calling it the Christmas Bazaar because, after all, we’re a church.”

She encouraged shoppers to come early, “because we almost sell out of everything by noon.”

Whatever the event’s name, the most fun, she said, is “having folks walk around and go ‘ooooh and ahhh’ and say ‘Oh, this is just perfect for my husband or my granddaughter.’”

For information call Kay Pinter at (253) 884-3466 or Julie Jonson at (253) 884-3312.