Saint Augustine points to the early Christians’ tradition of celebrating Christmas in the winter as anything but coincidental. In the Northern Hemisphere, we have just passed the darkest day of the year and now move into a period of ever-increasing light and a new year brimming with hope and enthusiasm.

Christmas was a new experience when I married into a local family and settled in Amagansett in the early 1960s. Neither my upbringing, which was secular and Jewish, nor my college years or gad-about life in New York City as a young woman of bohemian leanings had been at all Kris Kringle-y.

Calls for change — for justice system reforms and an end to systemic racism — echoed throughout 2020 in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others. That is why, when James Banks of Southampton celebrates Kwanzaa this December, he will reflect a little more closely on some of the principles of the holiday — most notably, he said, "unity."

At Christmastime in East Hampton, the festive lights across town enliven holiday spirits. This is the story of one of those spirits.

With the opening of the Sag Harbor Cinema Center delayed because of the pandemic, Jamie Hook, the executive director, is using the time to brainstorm ways to usher the theater from its art house past to a blockbuster future.

Thanksgiving wasn't just a one-day holiday, in the eyes of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. It marked the start of 37 days of dangerous revelry — 37 days in which state and local officials are predicting Covid-19 infection rates will surge as people shop, gather, travel, and celebrate.

Many brilliantly talented chefs declare "I hate to bake; I can't do pastry." That is because while cooking and baking are life skills and arts, pastry and baking are also science and chemistry and require precision without variation. To start with basic baking, you don't need a lot of equipment, but you do need the correct equipment.