There are people who say "How can you celebrate holidays when you are on holiday all the time?" To some extent they are right. If you work 10 hours a day, get phone calls from your clients in the evenings and at the weekends, and get to change the scenery for just 3 weeks a year, then you would feel we are on holiday all the time.

But long-term cruisers do not see it that way. For those of us fortunate enough (and we do know how fortunate we are) to cruise, it is our way of life and we look forward to holidays as much as everyone else. Trips home are referred to as "holidays" although when we tire of the traffic jams, the hurry-up mentality, and in our case (we come from the UK) the weather, we start looking forward to returning to the boat.

We have spent more Christmas holidays onboard than not, and they have been spent all around the world. Generally cruisers have a choice at Christmas of a potluck lunch (everyone brings a different dish), a meal ashore at a local restaurant/village community/yacht club, a party at an agreed anchorage (usually communicated over the SSB), or a meeting with a few friends at an isolated beach.

One of the most enjoyable ways we have spent Christmas aboard is when we have had land-based guests to stay. Not because we wouldn't have enough fun with our cruising friends, nor because it is good for our friends to have Christmas in an exotic tropical location, but because they get to experience the cruising life, the camaraderie between cruisers, the appreciation of locally available food (not to mention the creativity of those who cook it), and the imagination of children who are grateful for whatever gifts they get no matter that it isn't the latest whatever.

One year a child gave me (Colleen) one of his favourite teddie bears, and we have had gifts wrapped in banana leaves. However, one year we happened upon a covert conversation between one of our guests from the UK and our friend's son. Our friend is a chocaholic and because of the problems of keeping chocolate in the tropics, no one had bought her any, but she had bought some for our friend's son. He, being a smart boy, knew the problem of chocolate turning white with warming and chilling in the tropics so was offering to sell it to her for local currency so he could buy the clam shell he had been negotiating for from a beach vendor for the last few days.

Who says children who live aboard long term are less sophisticated than their land-based counterparts? Probably the same people who think we are on holiday all the time.