DECEMBER 2025
Madison Park Times Serving East-Central Seattle since 1983
www .M adison P ark T imes . com
Threads of Home: How Custom Fabrics Are Reimagining the Holiday Table
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ome stories begin with a bold leap, and Cole’s started the day she boarded a plane for Seattle—a city she had never seen but somehow knew would change her life. Fresh out of Montana State University, she arrived in the Northwest cold, lonely, and utterly certain she was exactly where she needed to be. It was a conviction inherited from her parents, who always encouraged her to explore the world and trust her instincts. That instinct—to wander with curiosity and create intentionally wherever she landed - has guided Cole through every chapter of her winding, joyfully creative career. While working as a secretary at a law firm, she took a second job at a neighborhood kitchen store. When the owner moved on, Cole was unexpectedly offered the chance to reimagine the business as her own. She launched Culinary Concepts, designing cooking class programs
that tapped into the city’s rising culinary scene. She recruited chefs from iconic Seattle restaurants—including Jerry Traunfeld of The Herbfarm, Tom Douglas, Jonathan Sundstrom, Greg Atkinson, and food writer HsiaoChing Chou—to teach curious home cooks. “The 1990s and early 2000s in Seattle were an amazing time in the culinary world, and I loved it,” Cole said. Cole later took an early “retirement” when she adopted her children, but life had more creative chapters waiting. A chance encounter Laura with the editor Marie of Vanguard Rivera Seattle led to an unexpected invitation: would she consider serving as the magazine’s fashion and style editor? The role fit her naturally—she came from a long line of writers and creatives, had always loved fashion, and found joy in curating beauty and meaning. More importantly, it offered a
Featured Stories
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Join Teacher Amanda at Primrose and May’s Holiday Craft Workshop November 29, 30th or December 6th to make a special handmade keepsake gift. rare balance: “It was a job where I could do something I loved and still be an involved mother and wife,” she said. Then the world stood still. During the quiet of Covid, Cole found herself back at the table - literally. She continued her lifelong love of entertaining
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by setting the table each night for her family, using the cloth napkins her mother had taught her to sew. What began as a personal ritual slowly rekindled her passion for craft and storytelling.
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The Seattle Joy Guide: Everything Is Glitter and I Love You
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eattle in December doesn’t just sparkle - it vibrates. The clouds are mood lighting. The air smells like cedar and coffee grounds, the sidewalks glisten like someone sprinkled them with optimism, and the Space Needle’s halo hums with that quiet holiday electricity you can feel even from blocks away. Somewhere between your third peppermint mocha and your fifth spontaneous compliment to a stranger’s dog, you realize it: the holidays have absolutely won. Somewhere between the gray skies and the glittering ferries, Seattle becomes a city that absolutely hums with holiday warmth - even if you can still see your breath. You’re not surviving December; you’re ascending. STEP 1: OH MYLANTA, HAVE YOU SEEN THE LIGHTS? They’re everywhere. Downtown glows like a jewel box. Fremont looks like an elf convention. Even the cranes have fairy lights - it’s industrial romance! You don’t need a passport or plane ticket to feel transported Drift through the lights of downtown, hop on the Monorail, follow the scent of roasted nuts and sugar cookies toward the Seattle Christmas Market at the Armory. It’s all there: handmade ornaments, Bavarian pretzels, the occasional Santa eating pierogi with spiritual conviction. Grab a mug of glühwein and let the band’s brass section convince you that you’ve made excellent life choices. Bonus: You will 100% text someone “You have to see this” at least once. STEP 2: COFFEE, COCOA, AND POSSIBLY TRANSCENDENCE This city runs on caffeine, and December is its Super Bowl. Get a gingerbread latte from
Café Hagen, and suddenly your aura is cinnamon. Try Elm Coffee Roasters, and you’ll start believing espresso has emotional depth. You could drink water, sure, but it doesn’t come with nutmeg. Pro tip: Any café with fogged windows and Bing Crosby in the background is basically therapy.
• Hop over to The Masonry for a slice and a sip from one of their fourteen taps. • Follow that with a late-night stack at Mecca Café, the kind of pancakes that practically beg you not to count calories afterward. Because calories are fictional in December. So are consequences. You’re basically Santa now.
STEP 3: LAYER UP, LOVE HARD Bundle up like an overzealous snowman and walk through the Seattle Center Winterfest ice rink. You’ll fall. Everyone does. But you’ll laugh so hard it’ll echo off the Monorail tracks like holiday reverb. Then wander over to the Seattle Christmas Market, grab a pretzel bigger than your face, and marvel at the fact that everyone seems get this - happy. That’s right. You’re in public, in December, in Seattle, and people are smiling. Take a deep breath. That’s joy in the air, not mist. (Okay, maybe a little mist.)
STEP 6: SHOPPING? MORE LIKE EMOTIONAL FORAGING Skip the malls. Go to the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall where everything feels handcrafted by someone slightly tipsy on cheer. Pick up a ceramic mushroom, a vintage brooch, and a sticker that says “Merryish.” Boom. You’re done.
STEP 4: COZY CULTURE (NO BLANKET FORT REQUIRED) Not every festive moment involves glitter. Sometimes it’s about stepping into warmth. Check out a candle-making workshop at Elm Candle Bar in Capitol Hill or a wreath class at The Works in Columbia City. If theater’s your thing, Taproot Theatre’s annual Christmas production delivers nostalgia without the sugar crash. Or go small: an evening poetry open mic at Couth Buzzard Books, where the lights twinkle, the cocoa flows, and the applause sounds like home. STEP 5: TASTE EVERYTHING, JUDGE NOTHING The holidays are not the time for restraint. • Enjoy a slice of Princess Cake from Byen Bakeri.
Gift wrap optional. Love is implied.
STEP 7: REDEFINE “PEACE ON EARTH” It’s not about big parties or perfect gifts. It’s that weird moment when the rain slows, the city hums, and the Space Needle's lights slice through the gray like hope itself. It’s your neighbor’s dog in a Santa hat. It’s that stranger who held the door at QFC and said, “Stay warm.” It’s the realization that you live in a place where the clouds sparkle sometimes. So yeah, Seattle - you win. You’re damp and unpredictable and deliriously beautiful. And if loving you this much is wrong… I don’t want to be seasonally adjusted.
Wishing you Happiest Holidays & a Bright New Year! We are endlessly grateful for our clients!
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Spafford Robbins, Eric Premo, & Gina Hasson