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Kristen Lee -
Rogers
The second annual Christmas Bazaar may offer you one major convenience this holiday season.
It could be your one-stop shopping experience.
This year’s Bazaar will be Dec. 5-6 at the Washita County Activity Center (corner of 3rd Street and Massingale) in Cordell. Saturday’s hours will be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday noon to 4 p.m.
The event started last year from a pretty simple idea.
“Last year, Candy Rogers and I had an idea about getting vendors together to do a little Christmas Bazaar,” organizer Kristen Lee said. “We thought it would be something fun, something to help out the small-business owner, the home-based businesses.”
It started slowly, with about five or six vendors, but then it took off.
“We ended up with 16 or 18 vendors inside the Community Center, so it was pretty packed,” Lee said.
Rogers agreed.
“We had such a great turn out last year and hope you all come see us again,” Rogers said
The feedback they received was great, Lee said.
“We had a really good turnout. Everyone one who came and shopped really enjoyed it,” she said.
People kept asking if there would be another event this year.
“They would tell us ‘We loved this, and it was so much fun,’ ” Lee said. “So, we’re doing it again.”
Rogers promises even more fun this year.
“Our Christmas bazaar offers a great variety of local homemade goodies, as well as all of your favorite direct sales gals will be there with great gift ideas and plenty of cash and carry items.”
Vendors will include those selling homemade jams, jellies, breads and cookies. There will be a vendor selling Tupperware, Scentsy, ColorStreet, Paparazzi and Norwex products. Others will be hawking homemade jewelry, rugs, car mats and crocheted items.
“All kinds of different stuff,” Lee said.
The event will feature something new this year, too.
“We will also have a photographer set up to do mini Christmas sessions,” Rogers said. “It is the perfect way to shop local and support the community. We will have so much variety all in one place.”
With about 21 vendors already signed up for this year’s event, they needed a bigger space.
More space will also help with any COVID-19 concerns, especially in light of the city’s new face mask ordinance, Lee said.
The space between vendors will be larger to accommodate social distancing. Vendors will have hand sanitizer and will use Clorox wipes to clean their area, she said.
“We’re trying to make it as safe as possible and still make it fun so people can come out and enjoy themselves,” she added.
If you want to participate as a vendor, there’s still time. You can contact Lee on Facebook or call her at the Subway shop.
“The Vendors, we all know each other, we’ve done things together,” Le said. “We’re kind of like a big family. We have fun getting getting to see each other, to visit, and catch up.”
The event is free to the general public, which means they just have to show up and shop.
The home-based businesses and vendors can use the support, Lee said.
“It’s a tough time right now, and a lot of the smaller businesses are struggling and we really hate to see that,” she said. “So we’re trying hard to support these smaller businesses. We really appreciate all of our customers. We’d like to see them come out and so we can show them that we appreciate them. We just want them to have fun.”
And about that one-stop shopping experience?
“Candy was saying, ‘I wish we had some kind of event where us homebased businesses could get out there, hey, this is what we have, pretty cool for Christmas gifts.’ And you could help out the home-based business here in your own home town,” Lee said. “It’s Christmas.”