It wasn’t Santa’s workshop that brought Santa Claus to Smith Mills Congregational Church. Rather, it was their annual Christmas bazaar that had tables of pastries, knitwear, handmade goodies, jewelry, soaps, candles, arts and crafts lining their auditorium.

On Saturday, Nov. 21, locals were invited to join the congregation in getting a jump on their holiday shopping. Dozens of vendors, from within and outside the church, filled the church to bursting with a plethora of specialty items.

On the other wing of the church, the kids could be found taking photos with Santa and enjoying a Christmas-themed crafts. The table was splashed with assortments of glitter, piping, crayons and coloring book pages.

Carolyn Hamel was one of the event’s organizers and she also managed the chance raffle filled with goods donated by members of the community.

The bazaar began more than 30 years ago as an apple-picking festival. Since then, it evolved to accommodate the holiday season and began attracting vendors to become the community-oriented event it is today.

Once we started getting the vendors… we expanded to have Santa and a craft room for children so we’re just trying to have something for all ages,” Hamel said. “And then other people just have lunch.”

Most of the funds raised go toward maintenance costs of the church, said Hamel.

“We feel as though we’re a community resource, and we want to make sure that we can maintain that,” Hamel added. “We just want to make sure we can maintain that for the community.”

Vendors like Julie Eadie have been crafting for years. Eadie specializes in knit- and crochet-wear and all her patterns are of her own original design. She’s been selling on Etsy for eight years but she’s been crocheting since she was a child.

From fuzzy hats with cute animal ears to sweet crochet toys, Eadie’s table was eye-catching with stacks upon stacks of her wares.

Other vendors were there to encourage locals to turn over a new leaf in the New Year. Victoria Sarmento manned the SouthCoast Energy Challenge table. A senior at UMass Dartmouth, Sarmento started interning this semester for the SouthCoast Energy Challenge, which encourages people to become more efficient and lessen energy waste in their day to day life.

They also offer cost-free home energy assessments to see if homes are available for solar panels and to see where they may be wasting energy.

Hamel was quite satisfied with the turnout. Waves of people had been pooling in and out, with a large rush coming to enjoy lunch being sold in the vending room.

“It’s been busy this morning,” said Hamel.