Christmas 2006
Christmas Eve I cooked a dinner on the boat and we had Ed, from Kuay, over to eat with us. Ed’s boat was still out of the water when we met him ashore to enjoy a few beers while the dinner was cooking. He returned to his boat only to discover that the boat was going to be launched with the 6PM high tide! We put dinner on hold until Ed could get his boat safely checked out and tied back on a buoy. He arrived about 7PM and the food came out of the oven. The baked potatoes and spinach soufflé were good, but the small boneless ham that I had purchased frozen in pretty holiday green-and-red foil was no better than just a slab of lunch meat. We enjoyed the dinner anyway!!
Christmas Day at 2PM, we met with several other cruisers up at the Balboa Yacht Club bar for rides to Angel’s house where we enjoyed a very fun afternoon and evening. She had about 30 people over to enjoy the friendship and food. We spent several delightful hours visiting with the new friends that we met. Angel’s home was all decorated for the season and – although no snow fell outside – we had a grand rainstorm that lasted for several hours. Just as evening was darkening outside, Angel served the Christmas feast and it was wonderful. There was a real turkey and a real ham and all the usual goodies to go with it. Everyone stuffed themselves with the delicious food. We then exchanged the small gifts that everyone had brought. Some of the gifts were a real hoot and several of the guests had never participated in that type of gift exchange, but they soon caught on and enjoyed the fun.
Before leaving we were treated to some fabulous desserts. Angel is a professional pastry cook so you can imagine how good they were!!! Even though we were still quite full from the meal we enjoyed more than enough of the sweets. A group of the female cruisers helped with the kitchen clean-up, washing the stacks of dishes and even bagging the left over food for the refrigerator. The washing was made fun by all the “girl talk” that took place in the absence of male company. Shirley, of Windsong, had arranged drivers so we did not have to hunt down taxis for the ride back to the marina. We returned to Lanikai to realize that it was already after 10PM and bed time.
Bill is greeted by the family’s pet
The home is well decorated for the season
The food tables were covered with all the proper Christmas goodies
The gift exchange was almost the last activity.
