Welcome once again to the Oak Bluffs Tree Lighting, the annual green light for all things Christmas to begin in earnest.

The Sixth Annual Festival of Wreaths will be held on Thursday, Dec. 3, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Federated Church.

'Twas Christmas Eve and Santa Claus was readying for his trip to see his Vineyard friends, of course, but traveling not by ship, nor ferry boat nor freight boat nor on the Island Queen. He comes by air each Christmastide thanks to his reindeer team.

I have always loved Christmas. For me, Christmas has never lost its wonder. It’s easy to see wonder in the bright eyes of a child. For children, Christmas is magical.

The outer harbor was dressed in holiday style Friday as Christmas in Edgartown festivities got underway with the annual lighthouse lighting. Christmas lights are just one of many signs of the season.

For more than thirty years on the second weekend in December, Christmas in Edgartown has been celebrated in the classic style of a small New England town.

Away in a hotel, no crib for a bed, a giant six-foot stuffed Teddy Bear named Obie raised his sweet head. The stars in the Vineyard sky looked down where he yawned. The rest of his bear friends, Chappy, Edgar and Tisbeary, lay asleep until dawn.

On Wednesday, Dec. 3, Oak Bluffs officially begins the countdown to Christmas with the annual lighting of the tree at Post Office Square. The ceremony begins at 6:30 p.m.

In the annual Gazette Christmas poem Santa finds something in his sack for almost everyone.

A full moon hung in the December sky this week, casting long shards of light across the darkened landscape of oncoming winter. Hours before sunrise, pale moonbeams shone through the glass panes of a west-facing kitchen door, a silent accompaniment to the small task of grinding fresh coffee. It is called the cold moon this month, and fittingly the Island has been wrapped in bitter cold, its landscape covered with a paper-thin crust of snow.