The Christmas Boutique

The Boutique for 2023 is now over! Thank you all for another successful year. For some last-minute shopping, please check out some of the online vendors below:

“I love the boutique and want to come back next year!” said the first-time vendor on Saturday close to the end of the AIA Christmas Boutique 2022! Great to hear another positive response to the boutique experience, and we assured the vendor there would be a table for them in ’23!

The Christmas Boutique is about enjoying new vendors and familiar ones, conversations with friends, buying delicious jams and jellies, colourful knitted mermaids and other creatures, beautiful photographs and paintings, cards, jewelry, hand-made gloves, candles, glass and ceramic works, wood carvings, hand-painted clothing, hand-made creams, and dukkah- flavoured popcorn that you can’t stop eating, exciting books, monster puppets and other creations to be bought and gifted or kept. The AIA Christmas Boutique, a kaleidoscopic rendering of colours, textures, smells, tastes, and sounds – buying and selling – the best of times! And the eggnog! With or without! Thank you Bruce for every enjoyable mouthful!!

Thank you so much to the vendors, all of you wonderful artisans and artists who make the boutique a success and a pleasure. Thank you to the hard-working AIA Executive, the volunteers at the bar and the kitchen and those who help set up Friday night and clean up at the end of the boutique on Saturday. You are greatly appreciated! And for the important online presence of the boutique, thank you Baye and others who manage the website for vendors who sell on line.

Thank you Leida for taking vendors’ calls and emails and assuring them that indeed there is a table available, complete with an electric outlet and wall space if needed, and Nina for coordinating with the Island Public School for Saturday’s enjoyable chili sale! And Teri, thank you for donating your design skills to do the poster. Always great working with you! Garth thank you for donating delicious home-made soup and bread for Friday night! And to the people we’ve missed thanking, you are the best along with rest!

For Julia and myself, we are passing on our role as organizers of the annual AIA Christmas Boutique to Rebecca Webster who has now received from us numerous lists and bits of paper and suggestions. Thank you Rebecca – you will be fabulous and we hope you’ll enjoy organizing the boutique as much as we have.

It was fun! Looking forward to the AIA Christmas Boutique 2024!

Julia and Gaye

The AIA Boutique occurs every year on the first Friday night and Saturday day in December. To register as a vendor contact the AIA after Thanksgiving at associationalgonquinisland@gmail.com.