Christmas 2016 and the Days to Come

It's Christmas Eve and we're all ready for the big day tomorrow. Tonight, we plan to chill out with Lin and friends and then attend a Christmas Eve candlelight service at the First Parish Church in Milton, Massachusetts. Tomorrow, Lin's son, Nick, and his partner, Val, and daughter, Daphne, will join us along with long-time family friends, Steve, Prentiss and Damon. Nine around the dining table will be cozy and fun. The 21 pound turkey with all the fixin's should be just about right!

We remember Christmases past when we were away from family or sometimes away from each other. This year we're together with family and even Cups is back home in the USA.

We plan to leave Boston mid-week and head back to Nine of Cups patiently awaiting our return in Chesapeake, Virginia. No blog posting for the next week to give us a chance to celebrate, pack and make the drive south … plus we'll give Gentry, the blog mistress, a well-deserved break, too.

If you haven't seen our Holiday Newsletter you can view it here.

Have a wonderful holiday season and join us again aboard Nine of Cups at the New Year.

sy Nine of Cups Holiday Newsletter 2016

2016, our 16th year aboard? Really? It's all gone by in a flash and we sometimes wonder where all the time went. Thank goodness we write blogs, keep journals and take lots of photos, otherwise we'd be sorely challenged to figure out just where we've been and what we've done for nearly two decades.

We'd left Nine of Cups in Trinidad at last year's end and returned to her in the early springtime. After lots of boat work and projects, we began the passage home. Cups had not been in American waters since 2007 and we were looking forward to being back in the USA once again.

We've had lots of adjustments to make now that we're back. I find myself forgetting that we don't have to provision for three months at a time … there are always grocery stores nearby. We have internet and phone service quite regularly and everyone speaks English.

As always, as we near the end of the year, our thoughts turn to the upcoming year and we wonder what adventures and challenges 2017 will hold for us. Plans? Well, we' really haven't made any. Downeast Maine and Maritime Canada seem appealing, but I guess we'll wait to see which way the wind blows and take it from there. Whatever we end up doing, we know it'll be wonderful and we hope you'll continue to sail along with us.

Click here to download a pdf document of our annual Holiday Newsletter and get the rest of the story and the year in review.

A Yuletide Season Celebration

It was -2F (-18C) as I crawled begrudgingly out of our warm bed the other morning and made my way to the bathroom (a very cold seat!) and then to the kitchen for two cups of steaming coffee that I had smelled brewing for the past half hour. Keeping warm is a major occupation these days in Boston and we wonder sometimes if we're up to the task. Too much warm living. After managing a cold day of food shopping, tromping around in slush, shoveling snow and lots of shivering, we prepared to go to Lin's Earth-centered group's annual winter solstice celebration … aka Yule. The best part of celebrating solstice besides the camaraderie, eating and drinking is that solstice signifies the end of shortening days and the beginning of the northern hemisphere's slow return to spring and summer. The days will lengthen again and the warm will eventually return. Hallelujah!

We've attended many Yule celebrations with this group and it's always a pleasant experience despite my griping and grousing about heading out into the dark of night and freezing temps to get there. Milton's First Parish, dating to 1787, is a white-clapboard UU church and always serves as our venue.

The group has gotten smaller over the years, but the core group remains solid and wonderfully welcoming. Pam led us through a simple, but thought-provoking ceremony. We reminisced about the old year and shared plans for the new. We sang carols and made beeswax candles as part of the festivities. And I, thoroughly involved in the ceremonial activities, took no pictures till it was all over. Darn!

We later shared a potluck dinner and exchanged gifts in a traditional Yankee trade. Everyone brought wonderful gifts so there were no white elephants … well, maybe the year-old Truro cranberry wine qualified. But we sampled it when we got home, and lo and behold, it was quite good and will be used as a dessert wine after Christmas dinner. A fun and meaningful evening. Let the longer days commence … soon!