The damp weather Saturday wasn’t enough to dampen spirits at the Wareham Garden Club’s annual Christmas fair, which ran from 9 a.m. to noon on Dec. 5 at St. Patrick’s Church. The persistent rain throughout the day forced members of the club to shift the planned outdoor fair to an indoor affair with strict covid-19 safety measures.

The club had a wide variety of Christmas decorations and gifts for sale, including wreaths, table centerpieces in multiple sizes, lighted boxwood trees, bundled holiday greens and many other crafts. Club members made the crafts by hand during workshops as usual, but this year the workshop groups were much smaller. 

The logistics of safely holding an indoor, in-person fair during the pandemic meant careful enforcement of covid-19 safety protocols. 

No more than 20 people — including the Garden Club members working the tables — were allowed inside the church hall at any one time, said Judy Morgan, the club’s vice president and fair organizer. The ground was taped with one-way arrows, and chairs were used to block off the center of the church hall, ensuring that traffic flowed from table to table without people congregating. 

Customers were asked to sanitize their hands upon entry and everyone who entered the church provided their name and phone number. Morgan explained this was so that everyone at the fair could be contacted if anyone who visited happened to test positive for covid-19 after the fact.

“It is a lot of work,” Morgan said of planning the fair. “The members go through a lot — and things changed so quick. We weren’t expecting a nor'easter.” 

Many people had preordered Christmas wreaths, centerpieces and other crafts or plants and picked them up just before the fair started. Sandy Slavin, who has been a member of the Garden Club for almost 30 years, was the fair’s designated cashier. 

Slavin said the fair typically serves as one of the club’s main fundraisers. The fair looked very different this year, she said.

“There’s no food, there’s no cookies,” Slavin said. “There’s not a lot of hand or small craft-type things. So what you see here is more Garden Club natural plant material.”

In a typical year, the club’s fair would feature a table of baked goods alongside the more plant-based items for sale. Garden Club members said people used to come specifically for the cookies, which could not be sold because of covid-19 safety concerns. 

Despite the necessary changes and restrictions, Slavin said she hoped the fair would still “bring some color to someone’s home.”