Wellfleet had its first really cold night of the fall, which makes me want to go see the ocean. As long as the wind is not blowing and you bundle up, walking the beach is still an option here. Yesterday, for the Christmas bazaar, despite the wind chill, vendors sold jewelry, cards, sweatshirts, and much more.
I paused at Tracy and Swede Plaut’s stand, with their marvelous hand-dipped candles, but I know blog readers are more curious about which wreath I purchased at the Wreath Pageant, described yesterday, so let’s move on, down Main Street. There was a crowd of festive Wellfleetians at 361 Main. Some drank cider, others ate cookies. Some did both. Preservation Hall’s Marla Rice was bouncing around the room like a Christmas elf, who had just been chosen to load Santa’s sleigh. 
She admitted to having placed bids on half a dozen wreaths. Tracy Harmon Hay’s wreath was up, and her husband Mac stood at the counter, chatting with Mark Gabriele of the Events Committee. No one had bid on "Oysters & Lemons" yet, a tongue-in-cheek wreath that still makes me smile. I checked the bidding sheets and realized I had been outbid. Both my bids no longer took home the wreath of my dreams! Since I had Sven with me, we toured the rooms again.
Yesterday I had placed a bid on Mark's "Tin Roses", as well as on Paula Erickson’s nature wreath, adorned with found objects from the woods: a tortoise shell, feathers, a bird’s nest. Several future bidders stood contemplating this wreath. They looked as if they really, really wanted to take it home.
Sven and I moved on. My husband stopped in front of a very simple wreath, created by shellfisherwoman Barbara Austin. Barbara had made her wreath entirely from scratch, Mark had told me, as opposed to starting with the ring of fir branches, provided by Preservation Hall.
Barbara’s “A little bit of Wellfleet” was similar to "A Walk in the Woods" only without ostentation. There were pine branches and pretty pinecones, but also cedar and fir sprigs, yellow euonymus and red berries. Barbara even used bits of santolina, whose grey foliage reminded me of my own garden. There was no ribbon, no tinsel. Just pure Wellfleet, unadorned, symmetrical, classic and utterly traditional, “the way people must have made wreaths back when our house was built,” according to Sven. “This will look lovely on your inn,” Bruce Bierhans, of Preservation Hall, said as I handed his wife my check.
I could only agree with him. What do you think?
