Christmas Afloat

Hello, my name is Laurie and I'm a Christmas-aholic.  I have been nuts over Christmas from the beginning of my memory.  In my land life, the routine included baking Christmas cookies.  This ritual began every year on my birthday in early October when I would pull out my books, choose my recipes for the year, organize my shopping list and get to work.  The finished project produced in the neighborhood of 10-20 dozen of 25 types of cookies that I boxed, plated, bagged and shared.  Yup, I love Christmas.

So being away from my family and friends (even in sunshine and palm trees) has really been the greatest challenge of this cruising life for me.  With the problem we had retrieving packages from home, Christmas has been harder than ever although each piece of mail received was that much more of a thrill!  Poor Rob has to endure my melancholy while I struggle with my addiction.  So he wasn't really surprised when I bought the box of candy canes on Christmas eve and we started "cane" deliveries around the anchorage with invitations to a "dinghy raft-up" Christmas day.  We stopped at near 25 boats in Lake Sylvia most of whom were "onboard" (that's a pun . . . ). 

While we were making our invitations, we were invited aboard a couple of boats for "an adult beverage".  We spent the rest of the evening getting to know new friends on two boats - BOTH of which I've forgotten the name of!  We had Swiss cookies with gin and tonics with Deider, Karen, Gabrielle and Dale and then had a great time with Cal and Marti who had brought both of their fathers (Cal, Sr and Irv) with them from West Palm for a Christmas Eve escape aboard their catamaran.  Marti and I hit it off immediately finding many things we had in common and Rob enjoyed the company of the three men. 

We told Marti of our plan to attend the 11pm carol service at a nearby church and she jumped on the chance to join us.  So we picked up her and Talulah, her purse hidden toy maltese pup in the dinghy at 10:30 and motored down the creek to the Church by the Sea.  We all found it funny to have to jump a secure fence to go to church!  We did have a nice time and appreciated the quiet and coziness of the candlelight service.

Christmas day dawned clear and calm with a 7:00 o'clock phone call from our new friend Rick saying breakfast was ready!  After a gracious albeit early feast, we came back to Moonshadow to attend to Christmas revelry.  Phone calls from both of our boys, our moms, siblings and best friends took much of the day and we prepared for our floating party.

Rick brought his trusty bruce "anchor-lette" and the two of us floated mid-anchorage wondering if we had a solo celebration on our hands.  About 15 minutes later, other folks started to dinghy over and before we knew it, we had 8 boats and 16 people!  Our crowd included Australian, Swiss, German, Austrian, Russian and we believe a Brit - amazing diversity for such a small group!  Oh - and here's my new talent . . . Rick (solo sailor), Rob, Jeff, Jeff Jr, Katherine, Luida, Gabrielle, Dale, Cindy (a solo sailor), Deider, Karen, John, Brenda, Julie, Terry, and Me!  I can remember names!  We shared snacks and stories for the next several hours before the clouds drifted in along with a building breeze and we all headed back to our floating abodes.

Our day ended with a feast of the remaining lobster gifted to us in St. Augustine.  Rick joined us for two massive tails with sauteed asparagus and wild rice pilaf.  We finished with a freshly baked key lime tart.  Quite a fitting, floating feast.

Rob and I  hope you all had a cozy and joyous holiday.