When the weather turns cold and the sun begins to set at the unreasonable hour of 4 o’clock, a gal can be excused for getting a little crabby. To boost my spirits and get into a holiday frame of mind I love to head to Provincetown and see the Pilgrim Monument all lit up like a holiday tree. Well, they don’t call it a tree but it looks like one, or perhaps a glittering skirt for a very tall maiden. The official reason for stringing white bulbs from the apex to the bottom of this 252-foot tower is to celebrate the Pilgrims’ first landing in America at Provincetown on Nov. 21, 1620. Whatever. It’s cheerful and offbeat, like the rest of Provincetown, whose small, eclectic shops are gaily decorated for the holidays. The summer crowds are gone and it’s nice to bundle up and smell the salt air mixed with smoke from wood-burning stoves and shop in a place that isn’t a mall.

High Pole Hill Road, 508-487-1310, pilgrim-monument.org.