There is snow in the air this holiday season and even better there are plenty of oysters in the ponds. This has been a good year for winter’s favorite bivalve. Tisbury Great Pond wild oysters are being sold at the market as a new report suggests a promising future for oysters in Edgartown Great Pond.

We wish a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year to Gazette readers near and far. Coverage of a Christmas Day home fire appears on Page Two. The post-holiday snowstorm is reported on Page Nine. Our offices will close at noon today.

The West Tisbury Public Library presents the exhibition Vineyard Signs and Then Some by Marshall Segall, throughout January, with an opportunity to meet the artist on Friday, Jan. 7, at 4 p.m.

Visiting artist Marshall Segall is a newcomer to the world of painting. A West Tisburian for only a decade, he has welcomed a sense of community at the Up-Island Senior Center at the other end of the parking lot from the West Tisbury Library. There, in 2009, he found the regular Friday afternoon watercolor painting group, directed by Nancy Cabot.

Please Adopt Us

Now that the holidays are “almost” over and we can all sit back and relax a bit, won’t you please give some serious thought to taking one or two of our beautiful animals into your home? I guess Santa was so busy giving toys to all the good little children around the world and around our little Island that he just didn’t have time to find homes for the animals at the shelter.

Two commercial bay scallopers in Aquinnah are facing punishment for fishing without a permit in November. Selectmen voted at their Dec. 14 meeting to fine George Baird $200 for scalloping two days on Menemsha Pond without a license, but referred a complaint against Wilde Whitcomb to town counsel.

By PETER BRANNEN

Frequent travelers off-Island will have more offsite parking options this off-season as the Steamship Authority voted on Tuesday to approve a $225 parking permit option that would run from January to May.