Holidays As soon as Thanksgiving is over, Orcas will be fully into the holiday season with a number of annual holiday festivals and bazaars that will display the best of local crafts and artwork, quilts and holiday gift baskets and raise funds for local and regional charities. Orcas Island Senior Center Holiday Festival of the Arts On Saturday, Nov. 29 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Senior Center will be holding their annual fundraiser. Martin Lund will be playing holiday tunes throughout the day to add to the festive music coming from the Multipurpose Room. There will be numerous vendors selling everything from glass jewelry and turned wood items to organic homemade salami and tie-dyed clothing and knitted wares. Gift certificates for local services including massage will be on sale. The artists this year include Bill Glass’s glassworks, Maria Papademetriou’s jewelry and boxes and Pheobe Grant Designs jewelry. All of the participants this year are from on Orcas except for Jim Wester who is returning this year from Waldron Island. “I am a blacksmith and I have been making decorative irons and knives for the festival,” Wester says. “I specialize in knives for woodcarving and kitchen cutlery knives. I last participated four years ago but coming over from Waldron made it too difficult the last three years. “I am working a lot on Orcas now so I am coming back to the festival this year. My son is going to High School here and I have been working with some wood carvers in Deer Harbor and it has been a great creative scene for me.” The baked food table will offer both sweet and savory. Cakes, pies and cupcakes will compete for space with panini’s and vegetable and meat wraps. Raffle items include two locally made quilts by Karen Blinn and Dorothy Arbuckle and friends, a knitted “sheep” blanket by Magdalena Verhasselt, and a number of gift baskets. Admission to the event is $1 or a donation to the Food Bank. The soup kitchen will offer a lunch offer bowls of split pea and vegetable soup and cornbread on sale for $5 and gingerbread with whipped cream selling for $1. Raffle winners for the Christmas, Kitchen and Beauty Bath gift baskets (on sale now) will be announced. The bazaar supports Orcas scholarship funds and veterans at hospitals throughout Wash. State. “This is a great collection of all the local arts and crafts talent and wonderful food vendors. It is a beautiful atmosphere as well. We have several new artists this year and a new food offering with Anthony’s Bistro. Anyone who makes a purchase at the faire is eligible to win one of our five gift baskets,” said Eliza Morris one of the organizers. The faire will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Every purchase from a vendor earns the purchaser a raffle ticket for one of five artist’s gift baskets. The event raises money for the Orcas elementary and middle school’s Artists in the School program. Admission to the event is free. “Come to the warm inviting festively decorated Odd Fellows Hall to do some local gift shopping of 37 island artists. Holiday music and food by Anthony downstairs at the Odd Fellows kitchen,” said Brenda Harlow, one of the organizers.