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.