The winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, is also a day that many people celebrate as a spiritual holiday, to gather with a small group of close friends or family and welcome back the sun. This year, it will be Monday, Dec. 21, according to the Farmer's Almanac.

At least we have the holidays to bring a bit of cheer. If you need a few tips to set the mood, the South Fork's musicians have no shortage of suggestions.

This year, haven't we had enough of turning inward already? And hibernating? Been there, done that . . . for what seems like forever. This should be the winter of not hibernating.

Lion Bob
Sag Harbor
November 27, 2020

Dear Mr. Rattray,

You're not really thinking of throwing some big holiday parties this year, are you? No, of course not. However, it's likely that you may be stopping by friends' and families' houses, and maybe expecting some folks and kin yourself, for low-key, safe-distance entertaining.

The East Hampton School Board on Tuesday formally accepted a retirement letter from Richard Burns, who has served the East Hampton School District as superintendent since 2011. His retirement, effective June 30, 2021, will cap a more than 30-year career in East Hampton.

Merry Madoo’s Santa Stand will be selling the conservancy’s home-grown paperwhites, apple and orange pomanders with velvet ribbons, and boughs of fresh-cut greens from the garden for holiday decorating needs.

Marine fishing industries that have experienced significant economic losses because of the pandemic can apply for federal grants through New York State's fisheries relief program starting on Tuesday. The application period ends on Dec. 31.

A former vice chairman of the East Hampton Town Planning Board who had been a co-chairman of the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee and an editor at The East Hampton Star before that, Robert S. Schaeffer died on Nov. 17 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. A longtime Wainscott resident, Mr. Schaeffer had been ill with cancer for five years. He was 76.

As Covid-19 surges anew on the East End, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital has once again suspended most visitation privileges.

President-elect Joseph Biden is expected to nominate Antony Blinken, who has a connection to East Hampton, to the cabinet position of secretary of state. Mr. Blinken's father is Donald Blinken of Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton Village, who is a former United States Ambassador to Hungary.

As it was expected to do, the East Hampton Town Board adopted the town's 2021 budget last Thursday, along with a number of resolutions aimed at projects to improve water quality in Montauk. The board also appointed members to new committees and an advisory group and scheduled a public hearing on outdoor dining legislation for next Thursday. 

The air quality in a unit of the Manor House complex, a new affordable housing development on Accabonac Road in East Hampton that has been beset by safety problems, has significantly improved after modifications made to the heating, ventilation, and cooling system reduced the levels of the volatile organic compounds previously detected there, according a report Friday from FPM Group, an enginee

With approximately 100,000 paper ballots remaining to be counted, work came to a halt at the Suffolk County Board of Elections on Saturday after a worker tested positive for Covid-19.

During the pandemic, the online overhaul of work, school, and the rest underscores a tech-aware message passed along by Denise Roland's Intentionally Unplugged and Nicole Delma's Mind Offline, brainchildren largely inspired by their real children.

A comprehensive study to develop a management plan to restore Fort Pond is warranted, those participating in a Nov. 12 webinar hosted by Concerned Citizens of Montauk were told.

A city planner hired by Sag Harbor Village to help develop a new zoning code for the village's waterfront area described its existing zoning regulations as "troubling," "puzzling," and "not up to the task" of guiding sensible development, and offered several suggestions for improvements at a board meeting on Monday.

The East Hampton Village Board approved large increases in the cost of several permit fees, and discussed a plan to charge for additional hours of parking in the commercial district. Drivers could pay for the extra time via a smartphone app, and the fees collected could be used to help cover the cost of a centralize sewer system.

This document is a photostat of the notes Sag Harbor's William Wallace Tooker (1848-1917) made titled "Fragment of the Montauk," which attempted to record some of the words used by the Montauk Indians. The spelling appears to be somewhat phonetic, as evidenced by more familiar words like sachem, "seaunskq" for sunsquaw, and "seaump" for samp.

Orsted, the parent company of Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind, has announced a partnership with North America's Building Trades Union, which represents more than three million craft professionals.