Tag Archives: holiday

Local Events

Wednesday: Las Posadas with food, music, piñatas, poetry, and Christmas lights

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This Wednesday, December 12, is El Centro de la Raza’s community celebration of
El Día de la Vírgen de Guadalupe y Las Posadas, with holiday music, food, and the annual tree-lighting ceremony. All are invited and welcome, and the event is free for the whole family.

The event starts at 5:00 p.m. at nearby culinary establishments The Station, Travelers Thali House, and El Sabroso, who will serve hot holiday beverages such as cider, chocolate Mexicano, and Champurrado to enjoy. The Station will also have piñatas made by the Jefferson Community Center Teen Program. Inay’s and Baja Bistro will have samples of food including Filipino pastries and chicken soup. The restaurants will also feature performances by the Seattle Fandango Project and A La Carte.

See a map of all the neighborhood events here.

From 5:30 until 7:30, El Centro opens up with their own selection of free holiday food, a nativity scene, Las Posadas, and a visit from Santa Claus.

Starting at 7 p.m., The Station will remain open for the monthly Beacon Bards poetry event.

The Las Posadas event is sponsored by El Centro de la Raza and ROCKiT Community Arts with support from Beacon Hill Merchants’ Association, Verity Credit Union, Sysco, and El Quetzal.

Arts, Neighborhood Pride

Beaconettes compete in caroling competition tonight

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Our very own Beaconettes are competing tonight in the Great Figgy Pudding Street-Corner Caroling Competition, at Sixth and Pine downtown from 6:15-7:15 p.m. Forty-plus neighborhood choirs will compete and raise funds for the Pike Market Senior Center and Food Bank.

Last year, the Beaconettes won the People’s Choice award for the second year in a row. Here’s a video of them (with very interesting hairstyles) performing “Seattle’s Best Things” for a large crowd at last year’s competition.

Come on downtown and cheer them on! You can take Link directly there and back and avoid any Westlake parking hassles.

Arts, Local Events, Volunteering and Giving

Caspar Babypants to play at Wellspring Open House Saturday

Wellspring Family Services, just a bit east of Beacon Hill on Rainier Avenue, is holding a free Holiday Open House this Saturday, December 3. The event will feature a special performance by Caspar Babypants (otherwise known as Chris Ballew from The Presidents of the United States of America). Caspar will be debuting a brand-new song written about the winner of this summer’s Kids Helping Kids coin drive contest.

The event runs from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Wellspring, 1900 Rainier Ave. S. Caspar Babypants performs live at 1 p.m., and there will also be holiday treats and tours of the facility.

Admission is free for all ages, however, you are encouraged to bring a new, unwrapped toy to donate to the Wellspring Holiday Toy Room. The Toy Room is a place where homeless families may come and choose gifts for their children. Wellspring expects to share gifts with over 1,000 children in this year’s Toy Room.

Caspar Babypants performs for happy, dancing children. Photo courtesy of Wellspring Family Services.
Local Events

St. George’s Holiday Bazaar promises food, gifts, and music

Warm up your wallet for a local gift shopping opportunity! St. George School is hosting the Annual Holiday Bazaar on Sunday, December 4, from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. in the school’s gathering hall at 5117 13th Ave. S. They promise artists, crafters, and other vendors, as well as food and entertainment for the whole family. Admission is free.

Vendors will be there to sell handmade scarves and other knitwear, jewelry, and toys. There will also be representatives of Avon, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, Tupperware, Theo Chocolate, Choice Teas, and more. Poinsettias donated by Georgetown’s Rosso Gardens will be available.

Food available will include a continental breakfast, Ivar’s clam chowder, and pancit.

The entertainment schedule is as follows:

  • 9:00 Bottom Line Duo (The Hoveskeland family)
  • 10:00 Roque Brothers (Filipino singers)
  • 11:00 Chuck Lind (Pianist)
  • 12:00 St. George Children’s Choir
  • 1:00 Unica Le (Pianist)

Here’s the St. George Children’s Choir performing “One Small Voice” earlier this year:

Food and Drink

Happy Thanksgiving from the Beacon Hill Blog!

Photo by TheCulinaryGeek (Creative Commons)
Happy Thanksgiving! We are thankful for all of our wonderful readers. We hope that at least some of you will be celebrating it with Emmett Watson’s famous Thompson Turkey recipe. “You do not have to be a carver to eat this turkey. Speak harshly to it and it will fall apart.” Long-time Seattleites should be quite familiar with this one, but there are a couple of other variations on it as well.

Here’s a BHB holiday tradition of our own: a great pumpkin pie recipe from my grandma’s recipe collection. I’ve used this recipe many times and it is very good. If you forgot to get evaporated milk, this recipe will save the day for you—it doesn’t use it, and you won’t miss it.

Pumpkin Pie

Start with 1 recipe pie crust. Set the uncooked shell aside.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Put 2 cups pumpkin (or one small can) into mixing bowl.

add:
2 eggs beaten slightly (Egg Beaters work just fine if you want it to be lower-fat)

add:
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla

then add:
1 c. scalded milk (skim milk works fine if you wish to use it, and so does soy milk)

Mix all together. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 450 degrees for 12-15 minutes, turn the heat down to 350, bake 45 minutes. It’s done when you can stick a knife in the middle and it comes out clean.

Makes 1 pie. For two pies, use a large can of pumpkin and double everything else exactly.

Enjoy!

Vintage postcard photographed by riptheskull, via Creative Commons.
Local Business

Still need to do that Christmas shopping and the buses aren’t running?

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We hope the buses are able to get us where we need to go today, but yesterday that was frequently a problem. (Metro’s Ice and Snow Transit Service Status page will tell you if your bus is still cancelled or rerouted.) If you can’t get off the Hill to do your Christmas shopping, don’t forget our recent post about holiday shopping right here on Beacon Hill. It might give you some ideas for ways to get your holiday shopping done here in our neighborhood — no gasoline, tire chains, or fender-benders necessary. (The comments on that post include some other suggested places to shop on the Hill, so check those out too.)

Life on the Hill

More holiday lights: 11th Avenue South

As recommended earlier by a commenter named Steve, we visited the 4500 block of 11th Avenue South and found this cheerful house with a rotating Christmas tree! It’s hard to get a good picture because there are trees in front of the house, but we did our best. Know of other houses for us to look at? Email us or post in the comments here.

As before, here’s a map. You can scroll around or zoom the map to see all of the houses we’ve featured so far:


View Larger Map

Life on the Hill

Holiday lights: South Columbian Way

We found more lights tonight. This cheerful house is on the 1700 block of South Columbian Way. (Know of others? Please tell us. We’ve gotten a couple of tips about light displays so far and were able to go out and photograph them. You’ll be seeing more photos soon.)


Here’s a map of the sites we’ve found so far (click on the map and scroll around or zoom out to see the other locations):


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Life on the Hill

Holiday lights: Beacon Avenue South, again

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Here’s another house cheerfully decorated for Christmas. This one caught my eye with its Virgin Mary with a shining neon blue halo. It’s in the 8000 block of Beacon Avenue South. (Know of more brightly-lit houses? Please tell us.)

I love that you can see their Christmas tree, too. So many of the houses I looked at had the blinds resolutely closed despite the cheerful Christmas lights outside.
I love that you can see their Christmas tree, too. So many of the houses I looked at had the blinds resolutely closed despite the cheerful Christmas lights outside.
Santa surfing the south slope of Beacon Hill.
Santa surfing the south slope of Beacon Hill.

Here’s a map showing this house’s location. If you click on the map and scroll around, or zoom out, you can see all of the houses we’ve featured so far:


View Larger Map