Annual bazaar listing marks beginning of holiday season

Regardless of the calendar, two things mark the beginning of the holiday season: pumpkin spice everything and The Olympian’s annual list of holiday bazaars.

The Hawks Holiday Happening at River Ridge High School is just one of dozens of bazaars scheduled in the next few months. The entire list is in today’s Olympian.

The River Ridge band fundraiser has 165 vendors, including a returning favorite, Kira Theine.

Theine crochets a menagerie of small animals. Most popular right now are octupuses and squid. Elephants are popular, too.

“The first year it was frogs,” she said. “Now no one wants frogs.”

Theine tries to have five to 10 of each animal, which come in two sizes ($3 and $5.) It takes about an hour to make each one, she says.

The Hawks bazaar began in 2007, and Debbie Macy has been there from the beginning, although she is passing the torch now.

Because the bazaar benefits the band kids, there’s “a lot of incentive for the kids to work it,” Macy said. “We probably have 30 students on at any given time, and we also have parents.” Students get credit for their parents’ time.

The students collectively earn $3,000 to $4,000 for band activities, Macy said.

In addition to Theine’s animals, vendors’ goods include woodworked items, handmade purses, soap, body products and Seahawks goods. There are food vendors outside.

Meanwhile, Theine, who makes her own patterns, is trying to figure out her 7-year-old son’s latest request: a snake that “eats” a mouse.

This story was originally published October 3, 2015 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Annual bazaar listing marks beginning of holiday season."