Battle Mountain held its annual community Christmas celebration and bazaar over the past weekend. Santa Claus was present and happily listening to what the children wanted to receive for being good boys and girls this year.
On Dec. 1 and 2, last weekend the Sober Seniors played host for the Christmas Bazaar in the Battle Mountain Civic Center. The bazaar filled over 22 vendor spots for the event, packing the building full of conversation and craft items. The event was open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday of the weekend, but most of all the bazaar gave the kids a chance to meet with Santa Claus.
“Everybody I talked to said this event was great, the vendors did well and looked forward to doing the event next year,” explained Civic Center Manager Robin Smith about the feedback from participating vendors. “We filled 22 vendor spots this year with the Sober Seniors running the bazaar. Everything turned out great.”
“A couple of my former students said Battle Mountain was having a Christmas Bazaar and we checked our calendar to see if we had the days open. We did, so we packed up and came back to town. We did wonderfully during the event, selling out of most of our stuff. We sold dream catchers, Christmas ornaments, soaps, painted rocks and railroad spikes,” stated former Lander County School District teacher Betty Ghiggia. “Friday was a little slow but Saturday more than made up for it. It was too bad the sports teams were out of town this weekend because I know a lot of parents travel with the kids to the games.”
Saturday evening the town of Battle Mountain was bustling around to get to the events of the day which included the chamber of commerce cookie walk taking place at the same time as the Christmas Bazaar. Smith and assistant manager Rita Rodgers worked well with the Sober Seniors to put on a great event over the weekend, and it showed with vendor feedback.
“We came from 25 miles outside of West Wendover and we will definitely be back next year,” Ghiggia told Smith at the end of Saturday night's bazaar. Smith noted that she heard the same statement from several of the vendors who attended. The event appeared to have been an enormous success for the Sober Seniors who helped raise money for present and future senior students at Battle Mountain High School.
