Thursday, December 14, 2023: My Favorite Thing #10

Holiday Decorations!

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.

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Daily Diary, Day 1199:

As you might have guessed, one of my favorite things is the decorations that people put in their yards, which make my walks so enjoyable. Some of these are permanent, but most are seasonal. If I was scientific about this, the Halloween decorations in terms of sheer number and variety probably would win. However, I think Christmas holiday decorations do come in a close second.

Here is my favorite so far, I think because it is so understated.

I would say the vast majority of homes have at least a wreath or greenery on their doors or windows as well as lights of some sort. I can tell a lot are artificial, but I always order a fresh one, because half my pleasure comes from smelling the pine as I enter the house.

What I found interesting these past two years, is that one of the most prevalent decorations combines lights with wire ornaments, and that, even unlighted, these decorations are usually still pretty. However, now that I have started walking in the evening, I am delighted that I am getting to see how different the decorations look between lighted and unlighted.

The past couple of years, there have been a lot of reindeers, which I have enjoyed.

But this bear was a new one to me, and I found its particularly charming.

I will leave you with a few miscellaneous decorations that also charmed because of their simplicity. The last is my modest contribution, when I decided to put out something that is supposed to be a tabletop decoration but that I thought would add my own bit of whimsy to the season.

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