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Beyond the Byline: A perfect way to remember Dad on his birthday

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State Senate approves final fiscal year 2020-21 budget

Maybe you get a kick out of scratching lottery tickets.
				Or maybe you really love your morning coffee &mdash; as well as your afternoon coffee, evening coffee, possibly even middle of the night coffee.
				Or maybe you have a young niece who&rsquo;s always singing &ldquo;Let It Go&rdquo; like Elsa in her favorite movie.
				If any of those descriptions fit, you know what you&rsquo;d probably be doing at a conventional, traditional bazaar.
				You&rsquo;d head to the basket raffle, pay for a fistful of tickets and stuff them into the appropriate little canister next to, oh, perhaps some artfully arranged lottery tickets. Or a basket filled with gourmet coffee and a coffeemaker. Or a kid-friendly basketful of &ldquo;Frozen&rdquo; accessories.
				This year, things are different at St. Nicholas Church in downtown Wilkes-Barre, where volunteers have been trying to make up for the loss of the physical bazaar that didn&rsquo;t take place in July, due to coronavirus concerns.
				The &ldquo;Virtual Bazaar&rdquo; that volunteers have planned this year will culminate on Dec. 6, the feast day of the parish&rsquo;s patron, St. Nicholas. That day, in keeping with the legendary gift-giving spirit of the fourth-century saint, drawings will be held for a 50-50 raffle as well as a &ldquo;Bountiful Basket&rdquo; raffle.
				The bazaar may be virtual, but the prizes are real.
				As bazaar chairman Rich Burns explained, raffle winners will be surprised twice. First, they&rsquo;ll be surprised to learn that they&rsquo;ve won something. Then they&rsquo;ll be surprised to learn which of the 38 prizes they&rsquo;ve won.
				Every ticket has an equal chance of winning the Vera Bradley or Michael Kors handbags, for example, or the umbrella with one hundred $1 bills attached &ldquo;for a rainy day,&rdquo; or the stack of family-friendly board games, or the selection of &ldquo;Beers Around the World with samples from Belgium, Poland, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland and the United States.
				Admittedly, not everyone would have an immediate use for a basket filled with products designed to welcome a newborn &mdash; but you never know.
				&ldquo;A young fellow said to me, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t have a baby. What if I win the baby basket?&rsquo; &rdquo; Burns said. &ldquo; I told him, &lsquo;Either hang onto it until you do have a baby, or regift it, as you wish&rsquo;.&rdquo;
				But, there are some gifts just about everyone could probably put to immediate use, such as the baskets that contain germ-fighting agents.
				&ldquo;Consistent with what we&rsquo;re all stuck with,&rdquo; Burns noted, &ldquo;there are several baskets that have Lysol and other sanitizing products.
				The public is invited to purchase raffle tickets (at a cost of 1 for $5; 3 for $10 and 7 for $20) through the church&rsquo;s website, stnicholasrc.com, where photos of all 38 baskets can be seen. Tickets also may be purchased in person at the church after weekend Masses, which are celebrated at 5 p.m. Saturday, 8 a.m. Sunday and 10 a.m. Sunday.
				&ldquo;As a courtesy I&rsquo;ve been calling the people who purchase tickets online and telling them what their number is,&rdquo; Burns said.
				The parish also is selling tickets for a 50-50 raffle, where the grand prize likely will be several thousand dollars, and more than 30 other prizes range from restaurant gift certificates to a live Christmas tree.
				In another effort to give people a touch of normalcy, in October the bazaar committee organized a drive-through dinner of Hispanic and German foods that are typically sold at the 3-day, physical bazaar in the summer or at the traditional pre-Lenten German Night celebration in late winter.
				&ldquo;We thought that the basket raffle would also be a taste of a popular &lsquo;booth&rsquo; that so many have enjoyed at the bazaar,&rdquo; Burns said.
				&ldquo;St. Nick&rsquo;s first bazaar was in 1968,&rdquo; Burns said, explaining the pandemic caused the first cancellation in 52 years.
				But he&rsquo;s feeling optimistic about next year, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a strong core group of bazaar volunteers and we will begin planning the 2021 bazaar in January, as we usually do, undaunted, with the hope that our parish and Wyoming Valley may be able to enjoy a few nice summer evenings.&rdquo;
				Meanwhile, he&rsquo;s hoping a group of lucky winners will enjoy whatever raffle gifts St. Nicholas Day might bring.

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Bazaar is virtual, but prizes are real