And so Christmas is past, or will be very soon even to those who celebrate all 12 days. The warm fairy lights are stripped off house facades, living rooms thick with greenery are cleaned and restored to simplicity. We remove so many comforts against the dark of winter, and we are left feeling a bit bewildered why seasonal depression is a thing.

Not every tale in the history of Santa and Mrs. Claus is one of victory.

Last weekend, I ran away to Faerieland: the Kingdom of Evenmarch, to be specific. The New York Faerie Festival is held during the last weekend of June each year, and this was the 17th year since it was founded. I am not new to faerie-themed events, but this was my first festival instead of a convention. Although both are in celebration of the same sort of magic and faerie faith, their energy is quite different.

The Yule season has Father Christmas. Easter has the dapper rabbit with a basket of eggs on his back. Winter has golden deer and candlelight. Autumn has Halloween frights from the vintage 20s. But for the longest time, I was perplexed what sort of decorating I could do in summer time.

Every spring she relearned the smell of warm wet earth and moss. Her feet remembered to avoid snails on the forest paths, and her heart rejoiced to see how the green surged out from the earth, gradually rising upward into the trees like a verdant leafy thermometer as the temperatures rose.