Winter arrived early this year, rolling in late last week on a polar express as if delivered straight from the North Pole. On Friday temperatures plunged briefly into the single digits, followed by a hit-and-run snowstorm whose fluffy white covering then melted away in a steady warm rain. And just like that, Islanders knew the time had come to say goodbye to a lingering mild fall. Late-blooming roses on fences in downtown Edgartown were frozen in place. Up Island, in a field off North Road a lone milkweed pod still wearing its silky white tuft clung stubbornly to the bare branches of a hedgerow, as if to say just one more day, one more weekend.

But as always, nature has the upper hand. The heaviest winter coats, socks, gloves and hats are out. Family scallopers have become indoor creatures, gazing through their windows at wind-roughened landscape, knowing that the hardy commercial men and women will be the only ones out on the ponds in the months ahead. The work they do endures as a symbol of year-round life on an Island. Meanwhile, for the Sunday scallopers, time to begin eating the bounty stashed in the freezer, perhaps wrapping a few precious packs to hand out as presents. A rare, flat calm day might be good for a basket of quahaugs. But mostly now the waders hang in the shed, waiting for spring.

Summer houses are shuttered for good, and the Island is wrapped in a deep blanket of quiet.

The solstice was Wednesday. Christmas is Sunday.

Signs of the season are all around. Holiday lights twinkle on storefronts in the villages, and are wrapped around bare trees and roadside mailboxes from one end of the Island to the other. Naturally this is a place where Christmas takes on seaside themes. In Menemsha the front garden at Deb Hancock’s real estate office has been transformed to a manger-like scene with golden deer nuzzling in the straw. Down on the Dutcher Dock, Everett Poole has fashioned his annual tree from lobster pots. In Vineyard Haven Harbor, the venerable wooden schooners Shenandoah and Alabama wear wreaths high atop their masts. Dented, mud-splashed jeeps and sedans rattle around on Island roads, some with Christmas trees strapped to the roof, as people rush about finishing holiday errands.

At the Gazette office in Edgartown the staff has been hard at work putting together the next edition of the newspaper, fortified by chocolate, clementines and homemade cookies that keep appearing as if delivered by elves. We look back on another year of service to the community with humble appreciation for the bond of loyalty between the newspaper and its thousands of readers and friends.

Henry Hough once wrote:

“The Christmas season comes edging in, and there would be no way to keep it out if one wished. December is all within the Christmas precinct, set apart by the evergreens that have been in the landscape all along but could not be so well seen until now, by other natural signs and symbols, and of course by the accumulating gentleness of the Christmas spirit. The year is almost gone; let the responsibilities rest lightly now, and yield everything more and more to the coming Christmas.”

Look up. High atop the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown a single star shines brightly, broadcasting a silent message of peace and good will to all.

Sending out warmest wishes to all Gazette readers near and far for a merry Christmas. Please remember not to drink and drive.