Southampton - Anyone walking down the main streets of our villages and hamlets can tell you it's that time of year again when a lot of our neighbors decamp for some R 'n R in sunnier climes - be they the beaches of Florida and St. Barth's or the gleaming slopes of Aspen and Vail.

The harbor in St. Barth's, with its mammoth yachts creating gridlock along the most popular quays, looks more like East Hampton Point and one might mistake posh Worth Avenue for Jobs Lane as so many Hamptonites have doffed their duffle coats for white dinner jackets and chiffon shawls.

Model Stephanie Seymour and her daughter on the beach in St. Barth. Photo by Photo Agency

It's a paparazzo's delight with the social powers and Hollywood celebs mixing it up in St. Barth's. Among those my spies tell me can be seen yacht hopping or working the scene at Nikki Beach were Russell Simmons, Dorothea and Jon Bon Jovi, Jimmy Buffet, Gilles Bensimon, Ron Perelman, Peter Brant and his beauteous wife Stephanie Seymour, Lorne Michaels, Richard Gere and Carey Lowell, George Soros, Bettina Zilkha, Aby Rosen and Samantha Boardman Rosen, Kelly Klein, Beyonce and Jay Z and gaggles more. This may well be the time for you to snag a dinner reservation at Nick & Toni's as all their regulars are in points south!

The hottest party my always in the loop pals tell me was Larry Gagosian's over the top dinner at Nikki Beach and Revlon honcho Ron Perelman's ultra exclusive New Year's Eve fete.

Over in Palm Beach it was much the same though not quite as confined as St. Barth's, although it might as well be with its rigid caste system of who goes where and when.

Donald Trump didn't let such pesky things as pressing debt keep him from his annual welcome the New Year blast at Mar-A-Lago. The Donald and Melania know the key to any party is to get the folks happy, so the cocktail hour was several hours long! That didn't phase Regis and Joy Philbin, regulars at the fete, as they had more time to schmooze.

At Club Colette, the mood was all Czarist Russia, a little Doctor Zhivago meets Faberge, but this is Palm Beach where fantasy reigns supreme. Tapping into their inner Lara were Southampton's Andrea and John Stark, East Hampton's Renee and Richard Steinberg, along with former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his bubbly wife Mila.

But the big soiree remains the Coconuts annual blast at the Flagler Museum where the distinguished gentlemen members of this exclusive enclave turn the tables on the area's most popular hostesses and host the bash as a way of saying thanks for all the fun times throughout the year.

Clad in white dinner jackets and sporting red carnations, the Coconuts welcome each and every guest at the door. This year, thanks to Percy Steinhardt of Stubbs & Wooten fame, the gentlemen were all shod in exclusively designed velvet dancing slippers. Any gent who's on the circuit knows that the S & W's are the only way to survive a night of dancing.

The Coconuts bring out Palm Beach's Old Guard and the new, or NPs as they are so sweetly termed, as well and some 300 others who swayed to the sounds of Neil Smith and his Orchestra. Among the revelers were Frances Hayward , Michael Carr, Stanley and Janna Rumbough, Cynthia Boardman and John Mashek, Chris and Grace Meigher, David and Julia Koch, Jean Tailer, Charles Schmidt, Helen and Winston Guest, John and Eleanor Ylivisaker, and Blakely Page.

Russell Simmons checks out his iPod at Shell Beach in St. Barth. Photo by Photo Agency

Not everyone took the time off - some used it to their advantage. Down in Atlanta, rocker Sir Ivan was just finishing up the photo shoot for his new album "I Am Peaceman" at Tree Sounds Studio where he shot the pilot for his reality series with four-time Emmy winner Jim Brown, when he was informed that he would have to step on it. Seems Whitney Houston and her extremely large, even by music world standards, entourage had suddenly shown up to put some finishing touches on a few songs for her new album, the first collaboration with her mentor, Clive Davis, in five years. The album, which was due to be released in November, will now turn up in January. The gallant Sir Ivan deferred to the singer noting he was just "Sir" but she was "The Queen."

Kathleen Turner has been rehearsing for her first trip back to the stage since her Tony Award nominated turn in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" This time it's with the brilliant Charles Busch in his latest work "The Third Try." Turner plays the mother of a screenwriting son who flee together to Omaha from Communism-obsessed 1940s Hollywood. An epic comic fable is what the wags are saying. Turner who has a tremendous flair for comedy, as seen in "Romancing the Stone," will no doubt shine.

If you didn't receive your invite from Barack and Michelle the way Sag Harbor's Chris Norwood, founder of Health People, the AIDS education organization, did, you'll not want to miss one of the East End's Inaugural blasts at OSO Restaurant at the Southampton Inn on Jan. 20. The Southampton Democratic Committee has much to celebrate both with the change in DC and the election of Sally Pope as Southampton Town Board Member and Andrea Schiavone as Town Justice.

I hear they have a diverse line-up of entertainment on hand including Gospel greats James Lamb and Company and the brilliant jazz artist Charles Certain as well as Latin American music. Expect all the key movers and shakers at this dinner dance which features a gourmet feast prepared by the much acclaimed Chef Brian Naylor.

Bridgehampton's and Sag Harbor's Don and Katrina Peebles will chair the Fifth Annual Grace in Winter Gala for Evidence, A Dance Company on Feb. 3 at the newly spiffed up New York landmark hostelry, The Plaza. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is the Honorary Chair for the gala and for the Brooklyn based company founded and directed by the incomparable Ronald Brown. This is one of those get out your finest and fancy duds as this is one fashionable crowd. East Hampton's Reggie Van Lee and his team have already lined up some serious corporate support including Booz Allen Hamilton, Curacao Tourism Corporation, CSP Events at The Plaza, HSBC Premier, and MTV Networks. Anyone who has been to this gala or their annual On Your Toes in The Hamptons knows this is one fun crowd, and the dancing by Brown's company is world class.

You just gotta love Jon Bon Jovi, an equal opportunity fundraiser if there ever was one. Jon has lent his considerable musical talents to raise big bucks for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama. Now, the musician is performing at a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton as she tries to close out her campaign debt. The Jan. 15 performance at Manhattan's Town Hall is being billed as "a final evening in support of Hillary Clinton for President Debt Relief." Ticket prices range from $75 to $1,000. The former First Lady and New York senator has been working to pay down her debt to clear the way for confirmation as President-Elect Barack Obama's Secretary of State. Federal ethics rules prohibit Cabinet officials from actively soliciting campaign contributions.

Bon Jovi and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been friends for more than a decade, uniting for state dinners at the White House, campaign fund-raisers in the Hamptons, and many events for Habitat for Humanity.

Hats off to East Hampton's Steven Schwarzman who, among many other roles, is Chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in our nation's capital. With the help of Emmy award winning producer George Stevens, this year's Kennedy Center Honors was worth staying home to watch if you didn't get a ticket, a classy show, indeed!