America’s Largest Christmas Bazaar

The two weekends following Thanksgiving, you’ll find this expo-held event featuring more than a thousand booths of fun. More than 300 of them feature artisans, but the rest, well, seem to all be hawking the same thing: decorative Christmas items, food goodies, makeup and scrunchy scarves.

America’s Largest Christmas Bazaar

Dates: Friday, November 25 – Sunday, November 27 and Friday, December 2 – Sunday, December 4, 2011
Time: 10am to 6pm on Friday & Saturday, 10am to 5pm on Sunday
Location: Portland Expo Center (on the MAX Yellow line), 2060 North Marine Drive, Portland, OR 97217
Cost: $7 General admission [Seniors: $6, Children (12 -17): $3, Children under 12: Free]. Parking is $8 per space, per entry. Carpools of three or more are $7.
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Info: If jostling with lots of people to sample gourmet foods, fight for the best deals and buy more holiday crap than you ever knew you needed is your idea of a good time, then don’t miss America’s Largest Christmas Bazaar.

The whole thing can be walked through in about an hour and a half if you speed and don’t spend too much time lingering over the dips or wine tastings. Although much of the stuff is cheap crap that you can find at any discount store, a few specialty vendors make visiting worthwhile if you don’t want to brave the cool temps at the Saturday Market.

Originally written in November of 2005. photo by: anneh632