Holiday purchases of homemade treats and hand-crafted or collectible gift items are possible at two church bazaars Saturday in Carson City’s downtown historic district along Division Street.
St. Peters Episcopal Church and First United Methodist Church, which are a block apart, will feature various holiday food and gift items during overlapping hours. The St. Peter’s bazaar begins at 8:30 a.m. and lasts until 3:30 p.m. in the Parish Hall, library and sanctuary of the historic structure at the southwest corner of Division and Telegraph streets.
New this year, weather permitting, is a Sidewalk Breakfast Cafe along the north side of St. Peter’s just outside the building. It will feature breakfast sandwiches, New Orleans beignets and southern gumbo for visitors before or after shopping. The St. Peter’s bazaar will offer a host of items, among them 22 “Department 56 Dickens Village” pieces available for sale individually in their original boxes.
The Episcopal church event also will be selling raffle tickets for a chance to win this year’s “Winter Solstice” queen-sized quilt.
The First United Methodist Church bazaar, a block to the south of St. Peter’s, begins at 9 a.m. and runs until 2 p.m. It features craft and other gift items, as well as food for hungry shoppers’ to break from buying or browsing over a two-hour period, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Available for luncheon will be cornbread and soup.
The two churches in recent years have been holding their bazaars on the same weekend day for convenience of shoppers seeking items with the homemade touch, many of them things unavailable in commercial outlets. First United Methodist and St. Peter’s were built in the late 1860s when Nevada had been a state but a few years and Carson City was a tiny state capital.