Naughty or Nice?

My favorite sign up now in our termporary neighborhood.

How are you celebrating the holidays this year?

Thanks to COVID, the holiday season is weird for everyone this year—we get it! I advised one friend to just take a raincheck rather than force it if the spirit didn't move her and her family to find alternate traditions that made them happy this year.

Wayne honors my Grinch tradition of no Christmas decor, given I'm Jewish and Christmas trimmings aren't a big deal to him.

I couldn't find my menorah in our RV, nor could I find Hannukah candles. I bought birthday candles, spread cream cheese on celery to hold the candles in place and blessed the holiday over their weirdest makeshit menorah I ever hope to have. 

Still, I appreciate my neighbor's decor and the sense of festivities and everyone's efforts to do their best to appreciate who were are with rather than who's not with us in real life, or, anymore.

Flamingo in a Santa cap in a neighbor's yard—more weather appropriate Christmas decor
for Florida, where are now as we are in the process of purchasing a sailboat here.

This isn't our first Christmas celebration where "dashing through the snow" is an impossibility because we're either in the tropics or someplace upside-down from a North American perspective because January is mid-summer and July is mid-winter.

Here's a few blasts from the past you might enjoy from a more innocent time:

• our first post-cruising Christmas
• Christmas spent chasing down satellite communication before crossing the Pacific Ocean
• Christmas in the land down-under
• Twisted Christmas wish from our first year Christmas cruising

Another neighbor's nod to the North, a fake snowman for Christmas decor neslted amon the palm trees.

Today we're enjoying weather in the 80s. I made sure to get in a swim as tomorrow's peak is forecast for the 50s, with temps that night dropping to freezing. That means tomrrow's COVID-adapted dinner like we did for Thanksgiving is more likely to be a grab-and-go than an-eat-outside at appropriately placed tables. We got lucky for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we're not expecting a return of that luck.

Still, we can say hello to our neighbors in the chow line, and we're alive to call friends and family to wish them well. We count ourselves among the fortunate for that this year. This is a year to remind us just how much we normally take for granted.

Happy Holidays!

Enjoy—or—Take a Raincheck

Seriously, let me know how you're celebrating the holiday this year. I'd love to hear from you.

Location Location

We're in Fort Pierce, Florida. The sailboat we're buying is in Jacksonville Florida. We plan to haul our boat out later in January at Green Cove Springs, Florida—I expect to spend my 60th borthday giving our new-to-us-boat a bottom job. Then come February, we're off to the Bahamas.