Nothing, I mean nothing, has been put away. The menorah is still out, the stockings and greens and tinsel — did I say tinsel? — I haven’t used that since I started keeping dogs and cats! Shining like a beacon on my front porch is the aluminum Festivus Pole. All the lovely cards you sent me are still displayed. I think when it starts getting really cold and bleak in winter there is nothing like keeping the decorations up and the cards out.

Leigh Smith and her daughter Pam Brock soldiered on as they always do, enjoying traveling in any weather. Off they went to Wilmington, Del., for Christmas with Pam’s sister Alison Driscoll and her husband Richard. Their sons J.P. Huntsman, Stevie and Johnny Brock were able to join the fray from their home bases in Michigan and New York city. Leigh’s son Procter and his daughter Nellie squeezed in two nights on the Vineyard with Leigh upon her return. Procter and Nellie spent Monday night at the weekly Vineyard Playhouse movie offering. On Tuesday they enjoyed the music of Jeremy Berlin. Before their quick foray on-Island, they had visited Leigh’s first great-grandchild, Posie, in Salisbury, Conn., with the rest of the clan down there, dad Charlie included. Leigh and Pam had met Posie in New Hampshire in November. So this was a festive conclusion to 2014 for Leigh Smith and her large family. Peace to you all in 2015.

Confidential to Lyn K.: I just finished reading Donny Brasco by Joe Pisterone with Richard Woodley. Oh, the tension of being an undercover FBI agent embedded with the mob! I almost had a heart attack just reading the book. I am now reading Bloody Mary’s Martyrs by Jasper Ridley, the story of England’s terror under the Papist queen. Odd isn’t it, how my favorite drink is named after such a humorless power-driven monarch?

I don’t see any hope for 2015 to improve my technology skills. Constant problems with my computer kept me from writing to you the past two weeks. I would like to make a resolution that I will get better at this, but I think I know the reality of the situation. Oh, where is MV Tech when I need them? Here I type from my old country on a friend’s computer after paying $377 to a company that returned my computer in the same sorry state. And I am sorriest because by not typing last week, I could not inform you of dear neighbor Angela Murphy’s birthday on Jan. 5. Hope it was happy and wish you all the best, Piper!

The birthday bandwagon pulls along Tarney Levett and Amanda Star Keiffer today. January 10 is a party for Brigette Araujo, Teika Lampart, Rita Shapiro, Sandra Healy and my grandson Dominic Leigh Clark turns eight on Saturday! On Jan. 11 Brittany Blacker, Maddox Anne Tenbrook, Tony Nordquist, Debbie Morelli, Judy Thomas and Sara Rose Kuehne celebrate. January 12 is a party for Virginia Grant, Inez Montanile, Anthony Ferreira Coelho, Yvette Rigaud, Marilyn Manning and Allan Davey. January 14 honors Lacey Evelyn Munn, Anne Dudley Williamson and Nora Cowett. And on Jan. 15, Martin Luther King Jr. and Barbara Cahill take the cake. Many happy returns.

Send your Vineyard Haven news to: iklean@yahoo.com.