‘Twas a Merry Merry Christmas

Simple and splendid…if I had to describe Christmas this year.

For Christmas Eve we anchored outside of Hope Town, just below the candy cane striped lighthouse.  In the morning we played tourist and walked around the tiny town.  The little colorful painted cottages here all look like like decorated gingerbread houses already (minus the snow).  I have a crush for shuttered windows and picket fences, if I could have them on the boat I would, and Hopetown has some of the cutest I’ve seen anywhere.  While walking around we got invited to crew on one of the traditional Abaco boats, Abaco Rage, for the Boxing Day races, the bow man saw us taking picture of the boat in the harbor and stopped us as we walked around town.  I’ve never raced before and was feeling a little too intimidated to commit.  I’m trying to say “yes” to all opportunities that come our way, even ones outside of my comfort zone but I had a feeling that his idea of “not too competitive” was probably a whole lot more competitive than mine! We declined, maybe next time.

The afternoon was spent snorkeling, Keith got us a little hogfish for Christmas Eve dinner to go with our beans and rice and corn bread.  We then headed to the southern tip of Elbow Cay to Tahiti Beach to let Kai run free.  There were seven other pups for him to play with.  His favorite Christmas gift this year!  On the way we stopped over to Lubbers Cay and passed along a “hello” to a friend of a friend.

At night we dinghied into the harbor under a full-looking moon to see the Christmas lights on the lighthouse and all the boats that had strung up a light or two.  At the end of the day Keith and I said to each other “that was a good day”.

I had packed two small boxes of Christmas ornaments on the boat and last week had dug them out of the bottom of the deepest locker and hung them up on a strand of garland. I had to laugh at myself a little for having packed a string of lights. Yes, they can run on the inverter, but it wasn’t like we would run them considering our power shortage issues as it is. For the tree, Keith and I took a walk on the beach and came home with a baby casuarina tree. Close enough.  The branches were too tiny to hang anything on but it still did the job. (We did end up turning on the lights Christmas Eve and Christmas morning anyway)

Christmas morning, after Kai opened his goodies (tissue paper shreds everywhere), we sailed back down to Lynyard Cay. We only lost a few ornaments when it got kind of active sailing pass the ocean cuts. The “Christmas tree” rode it out safely in the galley sink.  Our friends on the cat invited us over for Christmas dinner when we got anchored and within just a few minutes a meal was planned.  I will have to say, I think we surprised ourselves with it-they cooked a beautiful turkey breast and between the two boats we pulled off a proper holiday meal with potatoes, stuffing, gravy, corn, cranberry sauce, fresh rolls, and wine.  I made a cherry pie for dessert.  Everything was splendid, the food, the company, the setting. ‘Twas a Merry Christmas.  

 

 

^^Kai playing with his new Christmas present, a floating frisbee