Get comfy and get out your checkbooks and credit cards—it is time for my annual Christmas wishlist. If Santa has it by Thanksgiving he has time to meet our wishes.

I believe in local. The Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard can always use a contribution. So can Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard, our hospital, your local libraries, the Boys & Girls Club, your favorite scout organization.

Red Stocking takes contributions year-round. My two great friends, Sabrina Luening and Lee H. McCormack, have GoFundMe pages set up. Tim DeFelice needs a kidney. Wouldn’t that be an awesome gift?

If you can’t give money, give time. Volunteer at our hospital, you will be in the best art gallery on the Island whenever you work there. Help out the scouts. Shelve books at the library. Hospice can always use your kind attention. The Animal Shelter can use walkers and cuddlers. And, as is my only wish, I would like world peace. Bless you all.

The hero of my lifetime is Toni Doherty in Australia. She literally took the shirt off her back to wrap a burning koala and get him to a koala hospital. After one week of treatment, sadly, Lewis has passed. While we concentrate on local issues, please do not forget the fires in Australia and our own California. Now Albania has suffered an earthquake. The whole world needs our attention. I know you care.

Poetry and Pie has its second session of the off season on Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. at our Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse. Arnie Reisman is the emcee. And I hear that wonderful wordsmith, Lee H. McCormack, will be there.

First Friday continues in the off season. Meet me at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum on Friday, Dec. 6, at 5 p.m. for a few great hours of reviewing the work of our Island artisans, available for gifts for others and yourselves.

You may also gift shop at our NAACP of MV annual bazaar. This year it will be Saturday, Dec. 7, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Oak Bluffs senior center. I shall never forget my thrill of meeting author Carolyn Thomas O’Daly there last year.

Continue to send warm wishes to Shirley Robinson, please. She has been admitted to our hospital.

The birthday band wagon pulled along Kimberly Stokes Beal on Nov. 26, and on Nov. 27 Sarah Powell took the cake. Many happy returns.