It’s difficult to say yet whether the electric do-dad that was among the highlights of our middle child’s Christmas and Hanukkah haul was total junk or something really cool. What was clear was that when she lost a tiny and critical metal part at bedtime on Monday, crisis ensued.

An early riser, I had retired by that time, so I was only half awake when she came to seek help. I told her to go have a look around with a flashlight, maybe under the stove, where she had been working with the gadget, and if that didn’t work, I’d see what I could do in the morning.

Sometime around about 5:15 I heard Leo the pig jangling the kitchen radiator cover. He had been feeling poorly after eating a gingerbread house the day before, which had been my idea when the kids called me, bored and looking for something to do. So I had no one else to blame for what awaited me on the tile passageway floor.

That mopped up, I sat down at the table, where Evvy had left her device, a 3-D pen that extrudes melted plastic any which way, still missing the metal piece. Along the way I managed to down a cup of coffee and eat a reheated blueberry scone. That and the missing part put me in a cleaning mood.

I looked under the range’s burner plates, in the oven, alongside the refrigerator. Nothing. Then it was time to pull out the range itself, then the fridge, which meant sweeping up the various and sundry there and scrubbing the floor with water and ammonia. Aside from a notable collection of lint, a working calculator, 37 cents of good U.S. of A. money, and a few marbles, nothing of note was behind either appliance, and no metal part.

Having nicked a sloped portion of the kitchen ceiling while jogging the refrigerator out of its place, I next went down to the basement for a bit of sandpaper, wallboard compound, and a putty knife to begin its repair. Priming and painting would have to wait.

By then the sun was up, and as I swept up the last bits, I noticed what looked like a scrap of candy wrapper in the cabinet under the sink. There it was, the metal piece had been sitting in plain view all along. I slipped it back into the 3D pen, and headed to the office. No one in our household was even up when I pulled on my rain boots and headed outside, what felt like a full day’s work already done. The pig was still on his bed, looking somewhat the worse for wear.

Understanding that men and women may have different sexual orientations and that gender identification is not always known at birth are tenets of the revolutionary changes taking place in American culture. Lesbians and gays are long since out of the closet, and same-sex marriage is now accepted by a majority of Americans.

My generation didn’t think much about those who didn’t fit into heterosexual roles when I was growing up, and the word “transgender” didn’t come into use until I was middle-aged. Now, the Pew Research Center reports, some 70 percent of the generation known as millennials approved of same-sex marriage in a 2015 study.

East Hampton may have once been a backwater, but it proved to be a welcoming, nonjudgmental community as the 20th century moved along. People are surprised when I tell them that The Star was ahead of The New York Times in allowing women to use the honorific Ms. Others might be surprised to learn that The Star was at the forefront where same-sex marriage is concerned, too, having published a story about the marriage of two women at the Wainscott Chapel almost 20 years ago.  

The portrayal of love between women on TV and in film may still raise eyebrows, but it has moved into the mainstream. Two recent articles in The New Yorker brought me up to date and, at the same time, described the trailblazing influence of two women I know and admire.  

Marijane Meaker of Springs, who was the longtime revered leader of the Ashawagh Hall Writers Workshop until retiring recently, is one of them. The other is the poet Eileen Myles, a frequent visitor, who has relatives here and was a longtime friend of my late brother-in-law, David G. Rattray. 

Ms. Meaker is a prolific and award-winning writer who has published under numerous pseudonyms depending on genre: Vin Packer for lesbian pulp and crime novels, M.E. Kerr for young adult novels — 30 of them — among others. She used the pen name Ann Aldrich in writing a best-selling book on lesbian life, “We Walk Alone.”

The Nov. 30 issue of The New Yorker carried an article in which she is featured. It was prompted by the film “Carol,” which is now opening in this country after having been seen at film festivals around the world, including our own. “Carol” is based on the novel “The Price of Salt” by the late Patricia Highsmith, and Ms. Meaker is the author of a memoir about their love affair, “Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s.”

Ms. Myles, who in the last year or so has emerged as a national literary celebrity, has published some 20 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. She may be best known for “Chelsea Girls,” a collection of short stories that has been called a cult classic and was reissued this year. Her work also includes plays, performance pieces, essays, and art and book reviews. She is mentioned repeatedly in the film “Grandma,” starring Lily Tomlin, whose character is said to be based on the perennially cool Ms. Myles.

The Dec. 14 article in The New Yorker is about Jill Soloway, who won a best director Emmy for the television series “Transparent.” According to the writer, Ariel Levy, the series is a “radical exploration of gender and sexuality, unlike anything that preceded it on television.” It was intriguing to learn that a character in the program’s second season was modeled on Ms. Myles, too. (And, because I don’t keep up with television, I was intrigued by Mr. Levy’s saying, “it marries the marginalized idea of gender transition to the familiar American concept of reinvention.”)

People toss around the term “role model” quite freely, but these two pioneers deserve our recognition for bravely blazing new paths and for providing younger generations with life lessons in living according to both your conscience and your heart.

“OMG, I never heard of that,” a 40-something guy says to a lady friend at Starbucks on Main Street in East Hampton. The coffee in question is labeled New Christmas Blend . . . infused with cinnamon and ginger. New items pop up in the Village of East Hampton as never before. Chestnut Praline, Vanilla Bean Crème, Café Misto.

The Coffee War began not so long ago with the opening of the Starbucks flagship store on Main Street — an opening that opened the community to a new culture, almost a new world order.

Grim, lightly shaven millennials sporting dark sweatshirts tap away at lightweight MacBooks while seated at small tables. Teenagers show each other photos and silly things on their iPhones and Droid cellphones. Ha-ha, the teenagers laugh and giggle. A stylishly dressed young lady, an obvious product of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, embraces a friend near the entrance: “Oh, it’s so nice to see you,” she says to her equally stylish friend.

The holiday or Christmas season — call it what you may — is in full bloom at Starbucks. The perpetually friendly Starbucks employees take orders, oblivious to the moodiness of the customers.

Starbucks coffee items adorn shelf and counter alike. Youngish, diploma-minted, modern Ivy League Starbucks regulars have declared “Christmas is a secular capitalist holiday.” Notre Dame graduates take exception and do not say that. Intellectual concepts are apparently alive at Starbucks — go Ivy League, rah-rah, cheer. Lovers of Starbucks N.Y.C. and those who strive neatly find solace.

Countrified characters roaming this area find amusement in people-watching. A diplomatic local East Hampton guy, age 29, turns to his super-pretty girlfriend and says, “I want salted coffee over codfish.” Ha-ha, that was funny; she snickers cutely while ordering a small regular coffee with a little bit of milk and sugar.

So it goes: Young, intrepid East Hampton souls stand side by side with Perry Ellis models while the N.Y.C. 1-percenters consume tres cher coffees. Other Star Buds settle in, grimace in confronting their small laptops and lack of money.

Starbucks in East Hampton has become a true kaleidoscope of opposing personalities where the corporate menagerie willingly accepts their combined moneys without judgment. A bird for every season, a season for every bird — just put your money on the table and coffee will be.

On to Jack’s Stir Brew Coffee on Main Street in Amagansett. “Oh wow,” a person thinks as he views the Montauk Fishing Dock memorabilia strewn through the saltbox-style coffeehouse. Rock my soul: Classic rock effortlessly streams through the air of this coffee haven.

A short history concerning the signage missing from Montauk: Unless a battered fishing sign does not walk away from the Montauk docks at least two times each winter, it is bad luck. It is rumored a fishing boat captain circa 1940 was bored in February and borrowed his friend’s large placard from the friend’s boat slip. He took the sign home and hung it in his kitchen. His friend came over and loved his boat sign hanging there. Thus the practice became a gesture of good luck.

Jack’s Stir Brew Coffee’s process is fabulous, and hands down their café au lait is as precious as a French maiden gazing to sea off the Brittany coastline watching her lover’s inbound sail. The oldie Montauk boat signs adorning the interior have a quasi-legal provenance. Why did the Viking boat sign walk away from the docks in the winter of ’81?

Anyway, an awesome place Jack’s is . . . just go live for once in your life, ask for the owner’s nephew, he is Mr. Coffee — hard-working. Ask for Laura, long auburn hair, she can show you the house book that everybody signs. Fun.

Reboot: back to the Golden Pear Cafe in East Hampton Village. The view of Newtown Lane — a sleuth’s dream, a private eye’s haven. Regular folks too.

A Maserati driver’s love. You know, park in front, hop out, get coffee. A fabulous-looking woman dressed in Lululemon attire in the passenger-side Maserati seat, speeding off into the sunset — glam central, hard not to gawk. One longtime East Hampton carpenter used to call it “rubbernecking.” Rubbernecking is looking sideways at cool things or people while driving a nice worn comfortable Chevy truck.

Visit Mary’s Marvelous. Possibly not a coffee war: sort of a love-in. Feel the love, coffee-style. Mary’s Marvelous is fashion central, gossip headquarters of Newtown Lane, a real estate salesperson’s mecca, a working-class haven. An occasional movie star holds court at this storefront. Everybody acts cool, remains calm.

The food is yummy! Nice people pop out of workout studios seemingly surrounding Mary’s Marvelous. It’s all there — huge pots of the Sledgehammer blend and the store’s flagship organic brand.

For 2 to 5 dollars you can join the coffee revolution at Starbucks, the Golden Pear Cafe, Jack’s Stir Brew Coffee, and Mary’s Marvelous. There is no fear of being pulled over by the police after drinking coffee. Police personnel all frequent those establishments — all are on the level, nice and legal-like. The kind of place you can bring your teenage son or daughter, your grandmother or grandfather, whomever you fancy.

—

Morgan McGivern is The Star’s staff photographer.

As I said last week, I immediately dialed up the Round­about Theatre’s box office when I read a rave review of “The Humans” in The Times — a moment or so before Mary said she’d been wanting to see “Hamilton.”

I felt both decisive and tentative, knowing that my previous Wednesday bus trip pick, a film at the old Waverly in which absolutely nothing happened, had been a strike against me arts-wise. “At least we both got some sleep,” I said.

Of course, the reviewer’s words were there for all to see at the Roundabout’s entrance the other day: “Quite possibly the best play of the season,” or something to that effect.

“ ‘Possibly the best,’ ” she said, emphasizing the possibly.

“ ‘Quite possibly,’ ” I countered, hoping that this wouldn’t be strike two. 

There was no sleeping this time, not even a catnap. We were engaged from the first moment by Stephen Karam’s Blakes, a middle-class family of six living on the edge, trying its level best to celebrate Thanksgiving, when, really, there was not a whole lot to celebrate.

“This is beginning to hit home,” I said early on — to a blank stare from a woman seated to my left — after Brigid, the young daughter, reminded her father that given her student loan debt a ground floor apartment in a flood zone was the best she and her fiancé could do. I wanted to get up and join the conversation.

But humor abounded, the dialogue was crisp, and for most of the play wit pushed back the weight of suffering whose reach became increasingly evident. Consequently, the audience laughed far more than it cried, which is about the way it is in our family, though admittedly we have been luckier than the Blakes so far.

“The Humans” was neither maudlin nor sentimental, but rang true — a perfect play for a day in which we, in a way, replighted our troth, first at the New York Public Library, then at Times Square, the Roundabout, and the cellar bar at the Bryant Park Hotel. At one with ourselves, engaged, happy.

My goodness, do you believe it’s been three years since I last sent a Christmas letter? I finally found myself with a little free time and thought I’d let all our friends and family know what we’ve been up to out here in Montauk.

But first, I must explain why the picture on this card is not of our family but of some strangers holding a baby in a hut that looks like a manger. And is that a donkey or a dog next to the straw bed? Where does Hallmark find these people to model like this?

I wish whoever it was who coaxed them into those worn and tattered outfits would visit my house and work their magic on my three model-like adult children. Because they refuse to wear the matching sweaters I bought for this card’s cover photograph. It was all so easy when they were young and wore anything I put out for them. But now, just because they’re all in their 30s, they have united in the fight against wearing for two minutes at most the beautiful green sweater with Santa Claus on it and reindeers and little bells that actually jingle when you move.

I reminded them that someday they will treasure these pictures, but that only got a laugh out of them. “Mom, I don’t think I’ll ever be showing my friends a picture of myself when I was 36 wearing a stupid Santa Claus sweater that my mother made me wear,” said the smart-mouthed one.

I tried bribery and pity, but that only backfired when I told them it might be the last year I’m here to ask this of them. “Why, where are you going?” one of them asked with a hint of sadness.

And it was at that moment that I realized my children were in denial and that they had not a clue that someday their mother would no longer be with them to bug them and make them wear ugly sweaters and eat icky food. So I went with the line about women reaching a certain age when they no longer allow pictures to be taken of themselves with their four necks. I’m not there yet, I told them, but I’m up to a good one and a half, which I’m sure by January will be a full-blown two.

A woman’s neck is like the trunk of a tree — it gets thicker with age and is ringed with circles that help tell its age. The condition of my neck — no matter how many creams I rub into it — is not allowing me to hide from them the fact that their dear old mom is getting on in age.

Anyway, I finally relented and took the family picture, which was then mistakenly erased with my new digital camera! I knew I’d never get the three of them and my husband to pose for another and gave up. But if you look real close at the baby on the front of this card, she does look a little like my new granddaughter.

Well, would you look at that, I’m out of space already and I had so much more to tell you about. You’re probably too busy to read that much in one sitting anyway, so maybe I’ll write again after the New Year. For now, though, have a very happy holiday!

The combined Rattray and Heilbrunn families are celebrating Hanukkah late this year, so late in fact that the festivities will be the day after Christmas, also known as Boxing Day (at least in Great Britain).

Elaine and Karl Heilbrunn, my daughter-in-law’s parents — does that make them my in-laws, too? I have never been clear on that — have always gathered relatives and friends for a big party during Hanukkah in Northwest Woods. It was they who introduced my grandchildren to the notion that not only Christmas but also Hanukkah brought presents galore.

The doubling of the presents was new to them because it was new to me. Hanukkah just wasn’t a big event when I was growing up. My grandfather would give my brother and me silver dollars as Hanukkah gelt, and it would be the only gift we expected. The holiday was more of an observance than a celebration, with the lighting of candles for eight nights on the Hanukiah, a candelabra with nine candleholders rather than eight, which are on the Jewish menorah. (The ninth candle represents the miracle of the oil that the Bible tells us burned for eight days when there was only enough for one after the temple was regained.)

In the decades since, of course, many Jewish families have begun giving children gifts on each of the eight nights, perhaps hoping to stem any wishfulness about the Christmas splurge being showered on friends and neighbors of other faiths. I do recall that we gave our children nightly presents during Hanukkah, at least for a few years, when they were little, but they were modest: a chocolate treat or a deck of cards. Basically, however, Christmas took center stage in the “mixed” Rattray household — half Presbyterian, half Jewish — with stockings crammed full and wrapped boxes overflowing from beneath the white pine tree.

Now, the grandchildren have the best of both worlds, at least from a celebratory perspective. And a culinary one, I must add: Elaine Heilbrunn makes a mean latke, and I hope I won’t shock you when I admit we are expecting to enjoy them alongside a baked ham at our quite unorthodox Belated Hanuk­kah Boxing Day fete.

By the time Boxing Day rolls around, we will be on our third consecutive day of celebration, starting with a goose and Secret Santa on Christmas Eve, followed by a round of visits to various relatives’ houses on Christmas Day itself. The jollity (and, with a half-dozen kids in the mix, the noise) will be nonstop this week, and I rather expect we’ll be ready for a quiet and contemplative New Year.

We often say our house is full of too many things, that we are going to get at sorting and deciding what to do with them some day soon, but that day never seems to arrive.

Our household possessions are an unsorted mix of common, everyday objects and fancy ones, which may be antique, and many of them were handed down. How many sets of dishes do we really need, however, or, for that matter, how many books and CDs, which younger family members, schooled in cyberspace, may well think have gone out of style? Many fewer than we have around.

We have two built-in kitchen cabinets that are marvelous because they are big and hold a lot, but how often do we use champagne flutes and martini glasses? We were lucky to have inherited them, along with other niceties, but is it necessary for us to keep them long enough to also hand down?

And then there’s the pantry, where we boast an old-fashioned popcorn popper, metal molds and pudding pots, a cocktail shaker, a meat-grinder, toasters — all antediluvian — and a group of old local milk bottles, which I once went about collecting.

In addition, when Chris and I were married 20 years ago, he came equipped with treasures from his family, which we promptly stored away. I’m not sure now if either of us knows exactly what is where.

It may just be that I have started obsessing about our household goods because we are getting older. I can’t help being reminded of how my parents went about de-accessing when they decided to move to Florida. They gave me what I still think were all the wrong things, handing down a heavy glass bowl that had once been a receptacle for an electric mixer and more than one hand-held can opener. But, guess what? We hold on to them.

At holiday time each year, when all of a sudden we are the happy hosts to extended family, it feels good to take out and use many of our special things. Maybe next year I’ll ask everyone to take a look at all the stuff and put in requests for the future. If it goes well, it could be more fun than charades.

Forgive me if I have mentioned this before, but the sad fact that Leo ate his bed has our house a-fluster. Forget about the last-minute gift shopping and wrapping and decorating the tree, the fact that our not-so-small pet house-pig now has nowhere appropriate to sleep is a very big deal.

One of the things I have learned about pigs is that they are big babies. Well, at least Leo is. He likes to keep warm and complains bitterly when he is not. About a year ago, Lisa found the perfect solution, a huge dog bed with a cover that was open on one side.

Leo loved to creep inside it, rotating like a mole under a lawn until just his nose peeked out for air. Sometimes, Luna, the little pug, would sneak in to torment him, but most of the time he would just sleep away the days in peace. Until just before Thanksgiving.

Pigs are expressive creatures, creative even. Leo’s art (other than whining about whatever bothers him) involves knocking things over. We had four sturdy, antique wooden kitchen chairs; one by one, they fell to pieces under his assaults. Place anything new on the floor, and he is going to push it around with his snout. It’s the rooting instinct, I guess. Some pig fanciers’ websites suggest providing them with open boxes of rocks to satisfy their urge to snuffle about; we’ll have to try that.

So it was hardly surprising that at a certain point, Leo’s attention would turn to his own bed. A tiny tear in the fabric became bigger and bigger, and soon he was digging into the stuffing within and spreading it across the kitchen floor. It was off to the landfill with it soon enough.

When the weather is warm enough for Leo to sleep on our unheated porch, he forces his way under the cushions on the former analyst’s sofa we keep out there. But even in this mild December, there is a little too much chill for his tropical blood. Instead, he has tried to nest in a succession of pads, beach towels, and old blankets.

It would all be easy had the bed he liked not gone out of stock at the source where Lisa bought it. Leo’s reactions to the traditional dog beds we had procured locally were mixed, but he’ll have to make do for now.

In other pig news, I owe a shout-out to a reader and regular letter-writer who stopped by the office with a gift of three winged-pig ornaments she had found in a shop. Thank you, Diana Walker. We’ll make sure to keep them out of Leo’s reach.

“We’re going to Emily’s for Thanksgiving next year,” Mary said.

“That gives me something to live for,” I said.

“I’ll tell her you said that,” she said.

I was joking, I hadn’t meant anything by it — it’s just nice to have things to look forward to. We’ve been looking forward to a lot of things lately, and then, of a sudden, we pause because still other things to look forward to have supplanted what it was we were initially looking forward to, which is what we do until we replace the new thing, or things, we’re looking forward to with yet another thing, or things, to look forward to. 

In brief, we try not to dwell on the past. 

Besides, Thanksgiving at Emily’s — it will be my first trip to Perrysburg, Ohio, as in “Why, oh why, oh why, oh, why did I ever leave Ohio, why did I wander to find what lies yonder when life was so cozy at home?” — we are also looking forward to getting another dog. Assuming, that is, the breeders, who live in Virginia, after having perused our lengthy application, sort of like what you might have to fill out if you were applying to Harvard, concur that we are worthy.

When Mary asked, as she was filling out the application, when it was that Henry died, I said, “Not long ago . . . in May. . . ?” 

But it was, indeed, I learned later, while reviewing my columns, a long time ago — at the end of August in 2014. Fifteen months have passed and I can still see him looking at me from where he was lying in the kitchen as I was digging his grave.

“His world was narrowing,” Mary said, “and ours was too. He was almost there when he went, at our hands — a terrible duty this terrible beauty exacts. . . .”

We’re going to Emily’s next Thanksgiving, we’re getting a dog, and I’ve planted a small Christmas tree near where Henry lies. The new year’s begun.

The Star’s 130th anniversary, although a milestone, passed almost unnoticed here last week. It was on Dec. 26, 1885, that George Burling first printed 500 copies of what he called The Easthampton Star, only later deciding to separate the East and the Hampton, in keeping with local tradition. Mr. Burling can be forgiven for the error, given that he had started The Southampton Press only the year before.

That Mr. Burling thought it fit to introduce his new paper the day after Christmas seems a puzzle today. My father, writing in his own column in 1977, observed that the 26th of December came at a time of year when even the most curmudgeonly of letter-writers couldn’t be motivated to pick up a pen, and that a publication that survived the quietest week of the year could survive anything.

Times were different then. Shore whaling, a mostly winter activity, continued as a meaningful source of income for some East Hamptoners. The summer tourist trade was only in its infancy, with farming and fishing the main livelihoods, along with the trades and shops to supply them. The year’s end might have been as good a time as any to expect the townspeople to find the time to read something fresh. And for a publisher, a sense of hope and expectation at the beginning of a new year must have seemed auspicious.

Today, The Star thrives in a very different era. The days when once Mr. Burling and the editors who inherited the mantle enjoyed a new monopoly, in terms of both readers’ attention and advertising, are long gone. So, too, is a sense that a newsthings the way it always has.

Around the Star office, the biggest shock of the year past might have been the way the Army Corps project in Montauk, which we had reported and editorialized on extensively, blew up once the bulldozers started rolling — mostly thanks to Instagram. Despite the thousands of words about the plan in The Star, it was only when people began to see what was going on, largely thanks to an aerial view posted by James Katsipis, that opposition erupted. For us, it was a lesson.

One of the great puzzles about newspapering today is that even though we have far more readers than ever before, paying for the newsgathering operation is a greater challenge than, say, a decade ago. Weeklies are not alone; a friend at The Times tells me that business-side conversations there are dominated by the same conundrum. 

For us, 2016 starts with a look at our growing audience and how to reach would-be news consumers in the digital spaces they inhabit as much as it will be about bringing them to us. It’s an exiting and never-ending series of puzzles Mr. Burling could never have imagined.