The Falmouth Christmas Parade, part of Falmouth Holidays by the Sea, bills itself as “the biggest small town Christmas parade in all of Southeast New England.”

I love to see our charming villages and main streets decorated for the holidays. In this issue of Cape Cod LIFE, we are delighted to share nearly 50 pages of seasonal inspirations. This issue is filled with fun and festive holiday happenings on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

“Season’s Strolling” invites you to explore our entire region with an overview of holiday events in each area. This is followed by details on the dozens of listings mentioned. And our special advertising sections devoted to dining, lodging and shopping makes it easy for you to find the best places to eat, stay and shop. Our advertisers are many of the finest businesses serving the Cape and Islands.

The best of the season is right at your fingertips, as we offer all this holiday fun in our “Guide to the Holidays” at ccl.social/holiday-guide17 with clickable links throughout. As someone who resisted our company’s use of voicemail as being too impersonal when it was first introduced, I never thought I’d say this, but this instant access to details makes planning outings with friends and family so much easier, and more fun. As a bonus, the entire “Guide to the Holidays” package is provided in a downloadable PDF that includes a dining, lodging and shopping section. This is just one way Cape Cod LIFE in print and online at capecodlife.com complement each other to benefit our readers and users. Whether you like your information in print or online, we’ve got you covered.

Starting in the spring of 2016, we began a total redesign of our website. By Memorial Day weekend in 2017 we launched the new capecodlife.com. We are constantly making improvements, as this is a work in progress. So far, I am very happy to report that our new site is a great success! Page views and sessions increased 100 percent compared to the same 30-day periods one year earlier. For example, our “Guide to Fourth of July Fireworks on the Cape & Islands” recorded 135,000 page views in the days leading up to July 4. Online advertisers also saw results from those page views in the same time period.

Also, I am proud to tell you that the new capecodlife.com has been recognized and honored in national competition. FOLIO: magazine, the authority for magazine management for over 40 years, annually chooses “The Best” in the magazine industry, including both print and digital. Winners are chosen on the basis of many different criteria, including content and design.

We were notified in August that Cape Cod Life was one of three finalists in the national FOLIO: competition for best website design in the City and Regional category, along with Texas Highways magazine and Baltimore magazine. Having been named one of the top three in the nation, we were very proud to come home from October’s FOLIO: Show in New York City with an Honorable Mention. Congratulations to Baltimore magazine for winning first place, and to Texas Highways for their Honorable Mention.

I offer my personal congratulations and heartfelt thanks to the entire Cape Cod Life team, including Jenn Shurkus, Web Designer; Jen Dow, Creative Director; Liz Delaney, Graphic Designer, plus our editors and advertising sales staff for bringing such recognition to our company. Being six months away from beginning our 40th year of publishing Cape Cod LIFE, I’m intrigued and excited to see what comes next!

Gunkholing is the art of getting a boat into any small shallow cove, forbidden to boats of deeper draft and out again, without running aground much over a dozen times. – J.Benjamin