Sunday, December 22, 2019

Christmas in Key West @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: Key West at Christmastime is wonderfully festive. One of our favorite events is taking a Conch Train tour around the island to look at the best of the lighted displays. There is a contest that our mayor's home won last year. Here's what it looks like:




And here's the house two doors down:




And this is the home of our friends Kathy and Michael, whom I think are giving the mayor a run for her money:




Blow-up figurines are always popular too:






Last year, I was searching for plot ideas for what has become THE KEY LIME CRIME. Now that I'm working on the final edits, of course I know what's going to happen and how. Here's the smallest snippet to show you how I used the lights:

We drove by small concrete block houses decked out with lights of all colors, blow-up Christmas figures from The Grinch, Charlie Brown, The Polar Express. We saw fake-snow machines, homeowners having cocktails in lawn chairs and enjoying our enjoyment, and finally the first-place home, which we’d heard through the grapevine belonged to our brand-new mayor. She and her wife had decorated the front of the house as the North Pole, with enough lights to power every home on the Keys all the way up to Miami.

And this final home we didn't see this year, but I saved the photo a few years back:





And one more snippet:

“Only in Key West,” the driver sang out as he navigated down a small one-way street near the cemetery. “Santa may be a little late this year,” he announced, pointing to a blow-up Santa Claus splayed out on the front porch of a small home. Santa had an empty bottle of booze clutched in his right hand. “I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus” thrumming in the background completed the tacky picture.

In the new book, you may see a body buried in one of these photos...you can probably guess which one it is...

Hoping you are all enjoying your local lights in the lead-up to the holidays. How does your town decorate? Do you have a favorite display?


THE KEY LIME CRIME (July 2020) is available for pre-order!



You can order it at an independent bookstoreBarnes and Noble, Amazon, and anywhere books are sold!


33 comments:

  1. Wow . . . these are all so amazing. I love how there are so many ideas for the same holiday. I love seeing the Christmas lights. And I enjoyed seeing how you used all of them in your story, Lucy.

    I guess we’re about the same as every other town. Some people go all out; others don’t put up much of anything. One of my favorite displays is a huge wooden moon, with Santa and his reindeer flying over the town [all little wooden buildings] . . . .

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  2. Oh Lucy, the Christmas I spent in Key West ten years ago was wonderful! It was, of course, different from my usual Christmas, but that was part of the fun. My daughter and her husband lived in Key West the year I went, and both our families spent the holiday there. The decorations were both traditional and quirky, like your photos. We ate Christmas Eve dinner at a restaurant called Michael's (I think that was the name), a fancy place where we all had great food and a great time. For Christmas dinner, my daughter went with the guys fishing and brought back my favorite fish, Cobia (I didn't know it was my favorite fish until I ate it that day, and, unfortunately, I haven't had it since). It was one of my favorite Christmas times. I can't wait to read about it and relive my memories in the new book.

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    1. It's a different experience down here, isn't it Kathy? Though the forecast is for rain and thunderstorms, at least we won't get cold! You'll have to persuade your family to come down again, although Michael's closed this year...

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  3. How fun - and thanks for the sneak peeks! Our historical downtown has a lovely tall tree with white lights on it, and lots of stores have displays in their windows. I put (white) electric candles in the windows of our antique house, but I must have multi-colored lights on the tree. Can't wait to read the new book, Lucy.

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  4. So fabulous! Decorations in our neighborhood are intermittent… From subtle beautiful white lights to completely over-the-top crazy illuminated Santas and strobe lights. It’s really fun to see you, and crazy to imagine people taking so much time to do it. The other day I saw a front lawn that was covered, absolutely covered, with blowup people and angels and snowman and Santa‘s and shepherds. They were shoulder to shoulder. Not a patch of grass left open.. It was absolutely nuts! There was an entire blowup choir.

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    1. that sounds hysterical Hank! you could definitely hide a body there....

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    2. Hank here: Oh, you COULD! Yikes. Or ET.

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  5. The biggest Christmas displays I've ever seen were in Palm Springs, CA, about 20 years ago. We were on the West Coast over the holidays, and were invited to spend a couple nights with a friend there, and she drove our family around to the best neighborhoods. I imagine the displays are even more elaborate now than they were then.

    I barely decorate inside the house any more, let alone outside. Our old house sits way back from the road, so the only outdoor decorating I did was a bow on the carriage lamp and a wreath on the front and back doors. This year we have a wreath on the front door, and no lights at all. However, the two neighbors across from us have a lot of lights and other stuff. The lights shine all night, and I will like it better when they come down.

    We also live about two miles from a massive Christmas light display along the Ohio, with over a million lights. Hundreds of cars drive through it every night for two months, so the bloom is off that rose for me. Just call me Scrooge.

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    1. As long as you don't have to drive with all those people looking, you'll survive! Though I would like to see the lights along the river, that sounds lovely...

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    2. There's a big entertainment complex there, which only used to affect us in summer when there were concerts. The lights are pretty, but traffic is horrendous every night.

      But I can't imagine living on the street they call Candy Cane Lane in Palm Springs. The people who live there must have to park elsewhere during the display, there is so much traffic.

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  6. When we moved into our house 20 years ago, no one on the street had outside lights. Mind you, every third house was Jewish. We went wild that first Christmas, decorating everything tht didn't move, inside and out. This included a huge tree that we cut down ourselves -- like that will ever happen again -- and a nearly 500 piece creche scene that covered all available surfaces in three rooms.

    We continued the outside lights, lots of wreaths, graduated to a nice artificial tree that didn't spill needles, but eventually, about five years ago started leaving the creche in the attic.

    This year, between the unseasonable November snows and our responsibilities with the next door neighbors, we have nothing outside other than a wreath on the front door. Inside we have a tiny live tree to be planted outside, a gorgeous poinsettia that will die by New Year's eve, and, wonder of wonders, the ancient Christmas cactus, which we thought we'd killed this summer, is blooming on the buffet in all its glory.

    After we put up outside decorations that first year, most of the neighborhood started doing it too, so we are a feast of Hanukkah blue and silver as well as Christmas red and green.

    Tonight there is a neighborhood caroling that I hope comes by our house, and tomorrow night, Christmas Eve, Santa will arrive, coming down from the woods with gifts for all the neighborhood children. This is the 99th year our neighborhood has put this on, costs about $1500 per year now, with everyone contributing what they can in either cash or labor.

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  7. I love Christmas lights! The Heights neighborhood in Houston has the best lights display. When my son lived there, we would walk every evening after dinner. Dinosaurs, lights twined on palm trees, and everything in between. The Washington DC Zoo has a great light show, as does the Cincinnati Zoo. And who could forget Celebration in the Oaks, in City Park New Orleans, with what seemed like miles of light displays including Papa Noel and his eight alligators pulling a skiff. And Calloway Gardens south of Atlanta. We would pile on the train and sing Christmas carols as we visited the various light displays around the golf course.

    I've put Key West on my list.

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    1. I think you’d get a kick out of it Margaret! But definitely take the little train because otherwise it’s hard to find the best light displays

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  8. KEY West is INSANE... where I live the houses are lit up but much more subdued. We're a little dark spot on the block. I'm always fascinated to see what THIS year's have-to-have lights are going to be. My favorite thing are the LED snowfall projector lights that turn a house into a snowglobe. And no one had to climb into a tree to make it happen.

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    1. You live in New England Hallie, so of course you do lights differently up there!

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  9. The Key West folk have a wicked sense of humor. Love it

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  10. Lucy, I hope I get to see Key West at Christmas one day. What a treat! I really enjoyed the Christmas lights in London this year.

    We decorate inside and out. We just put up lights outside, or I should say Rick does and I help. They are very cheerful and a little amateur looking. Real tree, lots of inside decorations, and I've now reached the point in the Christmas bustle when I can stop and enjoy them!

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  11. Love the snippets, Lucy! And the holiday pics. I have always been a sucker for holiday lights! Being in AZ, I have solar powered lights all over our house, which are fabulous because they turn on automatically when the sun goes down and switch off when the sun comes up!

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    1. Have you gone to Glendale to see Glendale Glitters? When I lived there that was an annual outing. Beautiful lights in the park there!
      Dar Simpson

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  12. key West must be such a fun place all year long! The only time I was there was in February but maybe someday I'll get back there; I'd love to see all those Christmas decorations.

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  13. Amazing photos! What a fun thing to be able to do! Now I want to spend Christmas in Key West!

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  14. Gorgeous photos and video. Thank you for sharing.

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  15. Our neighborhood does it all: lights, blowup figures, those strange revolving lights on the house, you name it. My favorite from a couple of years ago involved a dragon wearing a Santa hat and a fire breathing dragon. The homeowner constructed them with lights on a wrought iron fence. So cool!

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    1. Hank here: Yes, where did those revolving light thigs come from? Yeesh.

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    2. Fire breathing reindeer, not dragon!

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  16. HANK HERE: OH no! This message from our dear DebRo got lost in my spam filter somehow--and she is having trouble signing on to Google as sometimes annoyingly happens...but she want me to add this to our post about last minute gifts last week, and I JUST saw it, so...hello from DebRo, who is recovering and getting better every day. SO--talk about last minute! She says:

    >>>>>>If it’s a last- minute gift for someone who lives elsewhere, I usually arrange for a gift basket of food. Sometimes I need to pay a little extra to make sure it arrives by Christmas. Last night I arranged for three different sets of people to receive food gifts, all are guaranteed to arrive before Christmas, and at no extra charge! I haven’t done a lot of shopping because my family is still trying to decide if we’re giving each other small stocking type gifts or if we’re each picking the name of someone to buy for. We have each had serious distractions in the last couple of months, with little time for shopping. I’m thinking of buying a few Barnes and Noble gift cards. If I don’t need them to give as gifts, I’ll keep them for myself!

    DebRo

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    1. Deb, we are so glad to hear from you again! I think the gift cards to the bookstore are perfect because you can definitely use them yourself! Hope you feel better each day

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  17. My family never decorated outside but you could see the lit tree through the window. I used to like seeing those like a peak inside the houses. Now I close all my drapes as soon as it gets dark because I feel safer and warmer. Since I don't drive at night, I only see a few neighbors' lights. Twinkle and flashing lights make me anxious so I prefer a simpler display. I like the funny ones, too.

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  18. I love the "Ditto" arrow! The father of a friend of mine runs the Green Parrot bar in Key West. I've never been there around Christmas -- wonder if they decorate?

    (I'm commenting on this weeks-old post mostly just to test my credentials for a guest post on 1/16. No need to reply, if anyone is still monitoring!)

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