Villages

A year ago, Natalie Massa couldn't have guessed that she'd be the chairwoman of a nonprofit organization, iloveukraine.org, donating money to orphanages in Kyiv. But the world changed when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and for many who grew up there, and whose families remain, watching events unfold without helping was impossible.

“There is Christmas spirit,” said Rick White, president of the East Hampton Kiwanis Club, after he received 40 trees deemed too small by East Hampton Village to offer as part of the club's Christmas tree sale, which helps fund scholarships for local high school seniors, a holiday toy drive, and a donation to Katy’s Courage, among other causes.

Praise the mozzarella sticks and pass the pool cue! The Sail Inn in Montauk’s dock area has been sold to the mother-son team of Colleen Croft and Luca Guaitolini, who also own the upscale Upper East Side restaurant Elio’s, but the new owners say they are not planning to go luxe on the longtime locals’ joint on West Lake Drive when it reopens in the spring.

The Hampton Ballet Theatre School has put on a performance of the classic holiday ballet “The Nutcracker” nearly every year since 2009 — the one exception a byproduct of Covid in 2020 — but this year’s production is the first time in school history that the annual production will feature a pair of real-life siblings in the roles of Clara and her brother Fritz.

In this photo, Christopher Cuffee (1862-1939), a tribal council member of the Eastville Montauks, takes a break under his delivery wagon’s canopy on a summer day.

Demonstrating a supply issue that dates back to 2008, Canadian grower’s first shipment to Fowler’s Garden Center had no larger trees, so it offered East Hampton Village smaller ones at a discount. Now it will provide larger trees of a more expensive variety for the same price. “We don’t do this to make money,” said Rick Fowler. “This is our way to give back to the community.”

East Hampton Village has big plans for the holiday season, including a tree-lighting at the Hook Mill sponsored by Prada and Santa arriving by helicopter in Herrick Park, but those tiny trees that went up last week? Not planned.

It’s hard to decouple the turkey from Thanksgiving, but long before we paired turkeys with mashed potatoes and stuffing and turned them into a national symbol, they were going about their business, hanging out in gangs, flipping leaves, and browsing the ground for nuts.

For lovers of bay scallops, hope gave way to disappointment for a fourth consecutive year, with scattered finds in East Hampton Town and New York State waters since they were opened to the annual harvest.

The abnormally low water table coupled with the spread of invasive species are combining to threaten the long-term health of the East End’s coastal plain ponds.

This Bonac Beachcomber came out the day before Thanksgiving in 1949, but instead of holiday festivities or football coverage, the focus was on a class debate and a 15th birthday party.

One day in 1972, “very little happened at the East Hampton Town Board’s unusually short meeting.”