Every year I string lights along the the lifelines and up the back and fore stays. I put a wreath or bow on the fore stay, and I put some lights in the cabin too. I usually visit with others at the marina share a few stories have a few drinks.
Christmas eve and or Christmas night I go down to the boat to watch it for a while and think of the friends I have lost and my Father who loved boats and tall stories who passed on.
Life is to short enjoy now, enjoy the lights the music what ever makes your heart happy, it is later than you think. Lighten up and just float.
__________________
So many nights I just dream of the ocean
God I wish I was sailin' again
Oh, yesterday's over my shoulder
So I can't look back for too long
There's just too much to see waiting in front of me
And I know that I just can't go wrong
Jimmy Buffet
One of my neighbors who participates in the boat parade every year says he does it to 'give back' to our community. Me, I get cold just watching it - all the proof I need that he really must be motivated.
We've got an artificial tabletop-size tree decorated with micro-LED lights (chosen as much because tiny was the right scale, normal bulbs would have been grossly out of proportion, as for their eco-friendliness). Decorations include starfish spray-painted gold and seahorses in santa caps and capiz-shell snowmen. We bought 'em at a craft fair hosted by the Naval Academy Aux - so all the profits went to a scholarship fund - but if you were crafty I assume a walk on the beach would provide a lot of raw materials and a good outing for kids.
When we lived aboard in Canada, I always loved seeing the boats decorated with lights. Most of us left them up for a few months. On a cold winter night it was cheery to come home to a dock full of twinking lights.
Over here Christmas isn't celebrated (of course), but we decorate anyhow. We will drive inland next week and we'll stop at a pine grove somewhere along the way. I'll cut a few small boughs. Due to our warm weather, they don't last long, but I'll hang them over the cabin ports in the salon and tie a bright red ribbon in the middle. I found a site for making homebaked Christmas ornaments (really). I'll make a few and hang them too. Come Christmas eve I'll put on my Christmas CD, pour myself a glass of something festive and settle back to think about the spirit of giving.
Not everyone aboard our boat celebrates Christmas. We celebrate all sorts of holidays here. I don't think that matters so much and any chance to celebrate good will towards all people is worth taking in my books.
Location: subject to change (currently, Bahamas Out Islands)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HoffaLives
i also hope that after all the noise i've made that people know when i'm being deliberately incisive or an ass. truthfully, i don't laugh at people at all, or call them lemmings. perhaps i should tone down the language.
Think I'm gonna side with Shack on this one, Hoffa. Too often all I at least get from your posts is the rage and quick overgeneralizations - think about the words you are using if you want to engage in thoughtful discussion. If 2007 was, for you, The Year That Did Not Go Well, then why are you continuing to live there - i.e., dwell on it? (Not that you have an exclusive on bad times, but that should be obvious, no?) Pick up the pieces of your shattered little life and move on. All women aren't high-maintainence even though you apparently had a bad breakup with one; all sailboaters aren't trust fund babies even if you had an expensive unexpected repair this summer, and all people who are happy in December aren't stupid puppets.
Location: subject to change (currently, Bahamas Out Islands)
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Rep Power: 5
Quote:
Originally Posted by Valiente
As a more nautical/pagan/useful observance, consider borrowing a sextant, if you don't own one of your own (and you really should, you know) and take noon sights from your deck or dock in the week leading up to the winter solstice (usually Dec. 21). Seeing the sun reach its lowest point on the southern horizon (or highest point on the northern, for certain Wombatish persons) really brings home the sort of global consciousness I feel behooves a sailor to possess. Yule is an important holiday for me, full of symbols and meaning that frankly Christmas no longer possesses. Also, having a sextant means you can literally go out the next day and PROVE by simple observation that summer, despite all indicates to the contrary, is coming in.
Happy Yule, and keep your wicks trimmed.
What a great idea, Val! I need the practice, too - last time I tried I plotted us 20 miles inland.
At least being off by that much gives you a pretty good idea of which direction the error lies in...
Quote:
Originally Posted by eryka
What a great idea, Val! I need the practice, too - last time I tried I plotted us 20 miles inland.
__________________
Sailingdog Telstar 28
New England
You know what the first rule of sailing is? ...Love. You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but you take
a boat to the sea you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps
her going when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurting 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.
—Cpt. Mal Reynolds, Serenity (edited)
If you're new to the Sailnet Forums... please read this POST.
I see Christmas as an orgy of consumerism in the US. The few moments of reflection, stuck in traffic, is the only redeeming part of it. Lemmings, we are just lemmings... Christians should ask a simple question, what would Jesus do?
while waiting on line at the mall.
I see this time as the turning of seasons, the first sign of the coming spring, winter solstice. Having grown up essentially agnostic with early life pagan influences, Christmas time for me is magical time of reflection about the next cycle, the next year and what it might bring....
I did not mean to insult anyone...
