Christmas shopping season officially opened with the Estevan Kinette’s Christmas Marketplace on Saturday. The traditional craft market with a Christmas twist and special features like flying minions, wooden flowers, sparkling tattoos, various decorations, sweets and much more attracted hundreds of people.
Janelle Luddington, who is the co-chair of the Estevan Kinette’s Christmas Marketplace, said that they usually have about 1,100 people, but this time just one hour into the sales they already had over 400 visitors.
“We’ve been steady all throughout the day, it’s been nice,” said Luddington, who was very grateful to the community for their support.
Most vendors were set up at the Wylie Mitchell Building and about 20 were at the Exhibition Hall. All together Kinette’s had 70 vendors in total and they even had to put about 10 participants on the waiting list since they reached the capacity.
“It’s nice to have that problem. Hopefully, over time we’ll be able to get them in. There isn’t a bigger venue in Estevan, that’s the problem,” said Luddington.
Most vendors were local with a few coming from Carnduff, Regina and Manitoba.
“We have a variety of crafts and home-based businesses. It’s a nice selection,” said Luddington. “We have quite a few new vendors this year. Out of 70 booths, I'd say 12 are new to us.”
Originally the show was started by the Quota Club, but Estevan Kinettes took over it and have been running Christmas Marketplace for years.
“When we took it over we were lucky to get about 20 vendors. And then we had to start letting in home-based businesses. Before we were strictly a craft show, there was no home-based businesses allowed,” explained Luddington.
Nowadays the crafts are again dominating the show with about 20 home-based businesses participating.
This years was the first time when Estevan Kinette’s Club organized their traditional Christmas market along with the St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation’s Festival of Trees.
“The reason why the partnership happened is money we raise at our door and from the booth, it goes to St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation. That’s what spearheaded the idea that maybe we should try and work together on the same weekend,” said Luddington.
In the sense of organization everything was almost the same as before. The only difference was that the seniors’ tea was held at Affinity Place at the same time with the market, so many people first stopped for tea, and then made their way to the market area.
Luddington noted that it takes a lot of work to put this event together and the organizing committee starts planning for the next one as early as the next day after the market. They also start registering vendors for the next year right away, with first vendors reclaiming their spots already during the event.
This year Kinettes were joined by Estevan Air Cadets who helped by running the canteen, wrapping gifts and babysitting.
