All Hail Santa!

As you can probably imagine, it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tea to pull off a production like The Boat Yard Christmas Market.

It’s there, down at the harbour, every year, come rain, sleet, snow or the odd outbreak of shine, and it’s always packed to the rafters with crafters, grafters and plenty of laughter.

This year, there are 40 stalls, with everything from clothes to scented soap, from original paintings and photographs to quirky clocks and woolly cloaks, whifftastic candles and wooden reindeer, Glendalough honey and whatever-you’re-having-yourself.

And pretty much every inch of the sparkling goodies on display is homemade, unique and, well, perfect for the oul’ Christmas sock.

What truly makes The Boat Yard Christmas Market a winner-winner-turkey-dinner is the fact that the money raised at this weekend market goes towards Greystones’ first-ever sensory garden, due to be built next summer in Burnaby Park. Over by those living lava lamps at Greystones Bowling Club.

And then there’s Santa, there every Sunday afternoon, from 1pm to 4pm, and packing more than just Christmas cheer and individual gift bags but also a certificate for each child, giving them their own personal tree in a climate-hugging new mini-forest, being planted by Greystones Tidy Towns in the spring.

We decided to catch up with Tidy Towns smoothie David O’Reilly to find out more – but first, there was the arrival of The Man In Red in a great big red Greystones fire engine…

You can view the full gallery of Boat Yard Christmas Markets shots from today right here, and find out more about this weekend treat here.