SEQUIM — Saturday’s party will have all the holiday accoutrements. But it will be “very low key,” promises Gerda Tamura.
It’ll also be unabashedly Christmas in October, in the finale of what organizers say has been the best Open Aire Market season yet.
The Port Angeles High School String Quartet, the St. Luke’s Handbell Choir and a costumed troupe known as the Boar’s Head actors will provide holiday-flavored entertainment during the market from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Cedar Street from Sequim Avenue to Second Avenue.
This is a last hurrah for the best year yet, said Bob Bowman, one of the decade-old market’s original vendors.
He’s the guy who decorates his wooden cutting boards and butcher blocks with celery.
The market has more vendors than it ever has: Up to 40 food, art and produce booths are set up around dawn each Saturday, said market manager Mark Ozias.
What made the difference this year, he added, was the “walk-around food.”
Among others, Billy Bob’s Barbeque dishes up breakfast and lunch, while hot dogs compete with crepes and Live Bread Shoppe cookies.
The Open Aire Market is a mix of Sequim flavors — local honey, Nash’s Organic Produce, $5 armloads of flowers — and cosmopolitan creativity.
People have moved here from everywhere, and that shows.
Tamura, who was born in Zurich, Switzerland, now lives on Lost Mountain, southwest of Sequim.
She hand-sews her own versions of Raggedy Ann and Andy to sell at the market, and recently added a new product: Embellished lampshades, which top her husband George’s wooden carvings of eagles and waterfowl.
Last year was the market’s first try at Christmas in October. And some vendors admit it seems a bit soon to face the holidays.
But the 2005 event was a success, Tamura said. The vendors cleaned up.
The Sequim Open Aire Market, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday on Cedar Street at Second Avenue, ends this week.
But the Port Townsend farmers market runs through Nov. 18 on Tyler Street between Lawrence and Clay streets. It’s open from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. each Saturday.
The Port Angeles Farmers Market continues all year in the courthouse parking lot at Fourth and Peabody streets. Produce, art, food and coffee vendors await from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
