December 19, 2003 - MERRY CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

	Beth sampling the goodies at a Christmas party aboard WINFINITY - boat belongs to Norvel and Linda White. We met then when they came to Guam and spent time working (twice!) and then turned up in Langkawi just before Christmas of 1999.

Merry Christmas Everyone! We hope your holiday will be white or bright or whatever your climate will bear, and that some "boat toys" will find their way into the parcels under the tree for you. And traditions? Are there certain things and rituals that you observe with your family and friends each Christmas?

There are at our "house". Even though we will spend our Christmas aboard our boat, in foreign waters, and away from family, there are certain holiday traditions that we carry on with in order to have a proper Christmas celebration. As with holiday celebrations of any sort, many of these traditions have to do with food.

My mother always baked lots of spicy gingerbread-type Christmas cookies. Or so it seemed to me as a child. Mom bravely allowed my sister and me to invite a girlfriend over. She tied us all up in dish towel aprons and set us to work with the dough and rolling pins and cookie cutters while she boiled up the ingredients for icing. Then we sat at the big dining room table, now covered with sheets of newspaper and wax paper, and sloppily decorated the cookies with icing and colored sugar, chocolate sprinkles and little silver balls.

Now each year I turn SUNFLOWER's galley into a cookie factory too. I bake about 5 or 6 different types of cookies, depending on what ingredients I can find in the local shops. I don't make the gingerbread ones anymore--they do need the icing, which doesn't hold up well in this hot humid climate. But I always bake snowballs, and butter cookies, and some form of chocolate chip; I add a couple of other favorites and I always try one new cookie every year. I pack up a selection of these cookies in baskets, boxes, or pretty paper to give to our yachtie friends who are with us in the anchorage at Christmas. My yearly Labor of Love to share.

Then there is the Christmas Day feast. We will be in Phuket, Thailand, this year again, so I know what will happen. By Christmas time all the "organizers" will have formed their groups into potluck barbecues on the beach, round robin dinners between boats, or make up a party and go to one of the many fine local restaurants for their Christmas Day dinner. Our friend Rowdy has a house in Phuket. Together with several long-time boating friends we will gather there, bringing good food and drinks, decorations and music. We will hope that Rowdy's oven works well enough to bake a turkey or ham for our sit-down dinner. But no matter what, there will be tremendous fun and laughter and sharing.

Not like our first Christmas afloat! That was back in 1966. We were just beginning to get to know our boat BACCHUS, a 40-foot wooden ketch. We were in Titusville, Florida, and didn't know anybody there. I had never been away from my family at Christmas and was feeling very homesick and depressed. We made it through the day because a displaced young couple from California, also away from family at Christmas and walking the docks looking for something to do, took us home with them to share their Christmas Day dinner. We vowed not to let that happen again. A few months later we met Guy and Vivianne, Belgians sailing their 36-foot cutter PROCAX around the world. As we got to know them better, we learned that they, too, had had a despondent first Christmas. We would all be in New Zealand for the coming holidays and would make a point of being together to share Christmas festivities. Our cruising "family" was born.

We have never been at sea for Christmas--that would be really depressing for me. Besides, I really like decorating the boat for Christmas, and that would not be an option if we were on a passage. Even now, just moving around the anchorages in Phuket precludes putting up our little Christmas tree in SUNFLOWER's cabin. Over the years I have collected tiny mementos from each of the countries we visit, and I hang them on the tree for decorations. Some are too fragile to survive if the tree were to fall over and crash in a sloppy anchorage.

I just bought some green garlands to wrap around the mast support. I will add lights, ribbons, and a few of the more stable ornaments in the collection. I always save last year's cards (mostly because we don't receive them until way after Christmas) and hang them on ribbons across the cabin. There are candles, poinsettias, and various special things to be unpacked and displayed. We have a set of multifunction lights that we can string up around the fore deck pretty easily too. The Christmas music has been loaded into the CD player. Looks like we are all set for this year's edition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"!

For other news of Yachting Christmas's with SUNFLOWER, see past articles from
1. 25 December 2001
2. 19 January 2001
3. 01 January 2000