Christmas Shopping

It's mid-December. Is your Christmas shopping done yet? Just a few more stocking stuffers to buy? Or are you a last minute shopper waiting till Christmas Eve to get the deed done (this describes David). I bought candy canes today and some proper English Christmas crackers...the kind that explode and cascade with trinkets and a silly crepe paper crown when you pull the tabs on the ends.

I haven't done Christmas shopping in over a decade. It's odd that while other people are running around crazy, spending big bucks and getting all verklempt, we're oblivious to it all. We send checks to the kids and grandkids and gift cards to the moms. That's it … all done in 10 minutes.

Truth be told though, sometimes I miss the Christmas shopping frenzy. Anyone reading this and stressing out is probably ready to brain me. I miss the hustle, bustle and hurry-scurry associated with the holidays. I like wandering around admiring all the store windows and ducking into the stores to see all the holiday displays and novelties even if I'm not buying. I do not miss the Visa bills afterward.

I especially miss finding that particularly clever and appropriate gift for someone, knowing that they'll be overtly pleased and I'll feel great inside for having chosen it. For sure, the shopping experience seems more frenzied in the US where Christmas seems to be all about the gift giving and receiving. In Australia, there's not half the hoopla we see in the US. Christmas is a summer holiday here...everyone goes to the beach for a barbie.

I miss meticulously wrapping each gift with special paper and ribbon and decorations so that the recipient says “It's too pretty to unwrap”. My sister and I would sit on the floor in the living room with wrapping paper, ribbon and decorating doodads all around us … and glasses of wine. We'd swap the tape and scissors back and forth and inevitably lose both under the piles of paper and scraps. We'd wrap all day making decorated masterpieces to be placed under the tree. Giggling, enjoying each others company and getting into the spirit of the giving season.

David and I don't exchange gifts. Sometimes we find a little something inexpensive for each other to wrap just to have something to unwrap on Christmas morning. Old traditions die hard. Last year David bought me a new tea mug with a distinctive Aboriginal design which I use every day now. Can't remember what I got him although I'm sure it was fabulous … and inexpensive. David's asking Santa for a new outboard engine this year (hard to wrap and not generally in the inexpensive category).

We'll stay in Hobart for the Christmas season. Unfortunately, they boot us out on Boxing Day in time for the arrival of the Sydney-Hobart Race participants. No worries. We'll find a close anchorage, so that we can walk back into town to see the race arrivals, all the New Year's fireworks and celebrations and do some sampling at the Taste of Tassie Fest on the waterfront.

I've wrapped the below deck portion of the mast in a faux-evergreen garland and hung nautical Christmas decorations throughout the salon. We've collected some sort of an ornament from most every place we've visited and hauling them out once a year gives rise to lots of reminiscing and good memories. The candy canes and crackers are placed strategically around the saloon. Christmas spirit is on the rise.

By the way, watching frustrated people shop reminded me that today is Cat Herder's Day. Folks trying to do the impossible … like buying the perfect holiday gift for everyone on their list without going over budget. For an hilarious video clip, try Cowboys Herding Cats. It'll cheer you right up.

http://youtu.be/Pk7yqlTMvp8

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is just another Thursday here in Tasmania... and everywhere else, I guess, except the US. We almost missed it this year. I always thought it was the LAST Thursday in November, but it's actually the FOURTH Thursday in November. This does not usually present a problem except when there are five Thursdays in the month...like this month, for instance. Our Australian calendar certainly doesn't show it as a holiday. Good thing Lin mentioned it in her email or we would have missed a major American celebration. Having just recuperated from my birthday, gearing up to eat another large meal with special treats was probably unwise, but you gotta do what you gotta do. We have a one-day advantage time-wise over the States, so I can report Thanksgiving before you even lift your fork for that first bite of turkey swimming in gravy. We usually go to the supermarket, find a turkey and measure it to make sure it'll fit in our little oven (that always elicits some stares from the locals). We've had problems the last couple years finding turkeys, but we managed to find a large breast and two turkey shanks aka drumsticks to roast up this year. Buying a turkey in Australia requires taking out a small mortgage. They're very expensive, but it's Thanksgiving. What are you going to do?

One of the challenges on the boat includes finding enough space in the fridge to store everything in advance. While we had the marina's van we bought everything we needed and our tiny fridge was crammed to bursting with holiday food. Finding enough pots and pans to cook everything qualifies as a challenge as does finding enough room to prepare everything. And then there's also sitting six people around our saloon table; and most importantly, figuring out the logistics for getting everything cooked and ready for serving simultaneously with a small oven and only two working burners on the propane stove. We always manage. It just takes some forethought.

It was a gray November day which sounds just like Thanksgiving in New England when I was a kid. Kind of raw, but no threat of snow here. There's always an air of expectancy, a childlike thrill on a holiday morning. We had our list going...clean the boat, make the stuffing, don't forget to chill the wine, don't forget to cook the turkey. As we get older, even the more obvious things go on the list.

David made a pumpkin pie and fresh dinner rolls. I was preparing the rest of the menu. We whistled and sang as we worked, bumping into each other and constantly trading places in our little galley. It was a most enjoyable morning. We had the whole day to prepare since some of our guests had to work today and dinner was planned for around 7pm.

We like celebrating Thanksgiving with friends. Everyone enjoys a good celebration and a good meal. Sharing it with non-Americans is a good cultural exchange. We invited Aussie friends Craig (of raptor and reptile fame) and his partner, Jody, as well as our boat-watching friends, Ian and Wendy. Definitely a full table for Nine of Cups. Neither couple knew much about our US Thanksgiving (why would they?), so we gave them the romanticized Pilgrim and Indians spiel. We did not, however, sing the Gobble, Gobble Turkey Thanksgiving song...too much American culture.

The menu included the usual turkey with stuffing and gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans almondine, squash, cranberry sauce. I searched and searched for either fresh or frozen cranberries to make our traditional Cranberry Pudding for dessert, but to no avail. Instead for dessert, we settled on a freshly made pumpkin pie a la David and blueberry crisp a la Marcie with freshly whipped cream. Nobody complained and no one left the table hungry.

We do count our many blessings on this day. To have each other and Cups and to live the life we lead goes beyond the usual “blessings” category. We're blessedly fortunate.

One other thing about Thanksgiving...it signals the start of the Christmas season. That means, Christmas music is allowed on Nine of Cups from now till Christmas Day … yet another thing to be thankful for. The Captain does not agree. Fa la la la, la la la la

Halloween - Celebrate whenever you can

Today is Halloween. We don't really need a reason to celebrate. Any day is as good as another in my book. In addition to every possible holiday, we celebrate arriving, leaving, hanging around...whatever. If we're in the mood to celebrate, we do. That said, the USA probably has the least amount of federal holidays, e.g. days off from work with pay, than any country we've visited. You wonder how some countries get anything done; they celebrate all the time. We celebrate lots in the US; we just don't get time off from work to do it. Halloween is a perfect example. The US celebrates this holiday like no other country we know though its roots run deep in Celtic history. In some countries, they've never heard of this holiday. In South America, they do celebrate Day of the Dead, but it's usually a picnic in a cemetery visiting their long-lost loved ones versus dressing in costume and begging at a neighbor's door for treats. My sister and her earth-centered group celebrate Samhain (sow-en), from the Gaelic “summer's end”, a time of harvest, reflection and preparation for the long winter ahead.

Australia is just getting into the whole Halloween thing. Grocery stores and the local K-Mart made a halfhearted attempt at ghoulish displays. The local Woolworths supermarket (aka Wooly's and nothing to do with the old 5&10¢ stores in the US) is even selling jack-o-lantern pumpkins for AU$2.79/kg. That's about US$1.35/lb at today's exchange rate and would run you quite a bit for the 10 pound pumpkins they had on display. Needless to say, we're passing on pumpkins this year.

I think part of the problem in Australia is this downunder thing. I mean we're in the southern hemisphere and it's springtime, not harvest time. It's a time of renewal here. Trees are all in bud and flowers are blooming. The Celts didn't know about australis incognita. They just knew winter was coming for them. Halloween here is a spring holiday and it loses a bit in the translation. It's all upside down.

I did bring back Hallowe'en napkins from the States. They make good packing material, so they made the final cut. I used them when guests came over for dinner the other night and they chuckled. If only they could have seen how we decorated our house in past years with corn stalks and pumpkins and those tiny orange fairy lights and witches, goblins and cobwebs. We hosted big costume parties. David even added a microphone and speaker to a jack-o-lantern one year so he could scare trick-or-treaters before they even knocked on our door.

While we were in Tonga, several American and Canadian kids went boat to boat in dinghies, all dressed up in makeshift costumes, knocking on hulls, begging for treats. They made out like bandits because everyone was so taken with the idea of celebrating this North American holiday in the middle of a South Pacific anchorage. A holiday and a part of home celebrated that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

I made chocolate cupcakes and frosted them with orange icing and brought some across the dock to our neighbor's little boy along with my stories of celebrating Hallowe'en in America. I wore my Hallowe'en shirt and definitely felt in a celebratory mood. For the record, yes, I do have a Hallowe'en shirt. I don't have many clothes aboard, but hey, let's be realistic. A girl's gotta have some luxuries and celebrating every possible holiday while wearing the appropriate attire is one of them.

A little trivia for you: cucurbitophobia ... fear of pumpkins