One shopkeeper says she senses more enthusiasm and gaiety among shoppers, and a local innkeeper appreciates the way people don’t seem to be rushing through the holidays.

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.
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.