The festive feeling of Christmas was again evident as shoppers browsed the offerings of twenty vendors at this year’s annual St. Agatha’s Christmas Bazaar in Sellwood.

St. Agatha’s Church Christmas Bazaar in Sellwood is one of the longest-running local such bazaars in the area, dating back at least sixty years.

This year it was again held in the church’s Parish Hall at S.E. 15th Avenue at Miller Street, and the 20-vendor sale was accompanied by food, music, and Christmas lights. In the past, the fundraiser has included two floors – upstairs for kids’ sales, downstairs for adults’ purchases.

Traditionally, income from the bazaar benefits the church’s Altar Society – as well as St. Agatha’s Catholic School, in the building next door. In former years St. Agatha’s students decorated Christmas trees, which were subsequently auctioned off at the end of the bazaar. This year, while there were plenty of Christmas decorations and gifts for sale, no Christmas trees were included.

The Chair of the event this year, Martin Skoviera, spent most of his time in the adjacent kitchen, supervising the preparation of snacks for hungry shoppers. Red-and-white checked tablecloths decorated tables for the customers who’d bought food from the kitchen or from the nearby snack tables. Cakes, pies, flavored popcorn, cupcakes, and other delicacies were quickly snapped up by hungry shoppers.

Vendors at the this year’s bazaar sold cards, wreaths, jewelry, dolls, knit goods, dried flowers, prints, ornaments, crystals, scarves, refrigerator magnets, bath bombs, candles, and various framed sketches, among other things. Shoppers left with their purchases, seemingly pleased to get an early start on their Holiday gift-giving.