HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

I’m not joking, so please track with me: We’ve got a problem right here in Oak Bluffs and, indeed, all around the Island. The problem is called January.

The Christmas decorations are stowed back in their boxes, along with the few new ornaments that those of us who are great planners (aka cheapskates) bought for half-price in the last week of December.

But now the stores are locked up, dead-bolt-tight, with the exception of those that sell vital necessities like eggs and light bulbs. A few of our fancier shops are available to receive customers every Saturday between 3:07 and 4:39 p.m.

It’s worse than that. I’m surprised psychologists from major university research centers haven’t conducted studies on this but . . . isn’t there something disastrously wrong, scary and psycho-making about living in a place where yours is the only house for blocks around where the lights are on? Where the soft blue glow from your own TV set creates a look up and down the road as if ghosts are having a séance? Where no dark, unplugged refrigerator stands open? I mean, if you walk your dog at night down these deserted streets, doesn’t it remind you of that song Stuck in the Middle with You? You just know that something ain’t right?

Obviously, we can’t guilt-trip summer people into spending more time here in the Grimm’s Fairy Tale months. Nor can we grab the ankles of our friends and neighbors now leaving for Tucson or Sanibel Island. Have you ever noticed how often these people call and whine like Penny Marshall of Laverne and Shirley, “It’s so cold down here. It dipped down into the seventies.”

But for those of us who are left to freeze and suffer an as-yet-undiagnosed case of Living in a Winter Ghost Town (LWGT), I’d like to offer some tips on bringing pride to our January community. (February is equally troublesome but it’s two to three days shorter, and we’ll cross that frozen bridge when we come to it. And March? Well, by March we’ve carried forward so much cold and isolation, it’s time to drive to the Bourne Bridge and call that number for the Samaritans.)

The first order of importance for January is, let’s keep the festive lights on! Some of us do that quite naturally. My friend, pianist Lisa Rohn, bewitches the otherwise dark lanes of Massasoit with strands of purple and royal blue lights on her porch. Thank you, Lisa! Please keep them strung up and let us know if you need us to chip in on the electric bill (more on that later).

The Third World Emporium at the top of Circuit avenue has so far retained the pale blue lights that outline the whole of the gently-gabled building. It’s gorgeous! Some of the shops, whether they retain those Saturday 3:07 to 4:39 hours, reveal showcases of softly sumptuous, gently lit beauty: L’Elegance and Sanctuary come to mind. Thai Cuisine, which actually is open most nights, knocks you awake and happy with its full window curtain of light strands. Paisan Pizza at the far dark end of the Oyster Bar Grill has a neon OPEN sign that stays lit all night, and even though it defies all logic that it’s there and it’s lit and it declares that it’s OPEN when no guy in a white cap and apron with a long pizza oven shovel is anywhere in sight, the OPEN sign brings healing in this time when all the world is empty, dark, and gulag-ish.

So it’s probably a terrible idea from an eco standpoint to encourage people to keep their Christmas lights on or to hang new ones, but look at it this way: See all the abandoned homes around us with no one inside them to run dishwashers or watch Two and a Half Men or keep the porch light burning for the prodigal son? I think if we all festoon our homes and establishments with January lights, we’re still way in the black as far as Thomas Edison is concerned.

Lights are certainly on at Adult and Community Education with classes taking place at the high school and at Featherstone Center for the Arts. This month features a few special cooking classes: on Tuesday, Jan. 25, MJ Delekta will be teaching Yoga of Food Cooking. On Wednesday, Feb. 2, in honor of Valentine’s Day, master chef of Atria, Christian Thornton will be teaching a class with an emphasis on high scrumptiousness combined with scant prep time spent in the kitchen (presumably to allow wooing to take place in other parts of the home). To register for these or other ACE MV classes, log on to acemv.org.

At the Oak Bluffs Library on Saturday, Jan. 22, Snowflakes Crafts will be on offer from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. On Wednesday, Jan. 26, story time will take place at 10:30 a.m. for the one-and-a-half to three year old set, and at 11:30 for tots aged three to five; the theme will be Colors.