Christmas Aboard

Christmas is by far, hands down, hands in the air, my favorite holiday. And it’s not just Christmas day, it’s the whole Christmas season. For my entire life, the majority of my Christmas’ have always been exactly the same. Cold, snowy (if we are lucky) and small with just 7 people doing lots of snuggling, movie watching, playing games, eating and drinking. I have fond memories of large family christmases and always enjoy whenever the family gets together however Christmas for me, is associated with quiet, with everything blanketed by the snow.

And despite having hot Christmases in my early childhood, it’s now a cold christmasy that does it for me. Especially as we have aimed to distance ourself from the commercialism and materialism that seems to come out in full throttle around Christmas time, we don’t experience the carols and trees and lights that are playing in a shopping centre for example. In fact, we actively avoid shopping centers. To be honest, we don’t really miss it (the commercialism or the stuff). And since I associate Christmas with cold and snow, just being outside doesn’t trigger any Christmas love. However, it is these sensory cues that provide some of the Christmas feels! 

So without any effort on our part, Christmas in the tropics could easily just pass us by with a blink of the eye. So we must make the effort! When we first bought Batty, my mum put together a small collection of decorations and ornaments from our personal stashes at home and sent them along for our Christmases aboard. Just the “essentials”: a small tree, a tiny nativity, stockings and a couple of other random ornaments and I supplemented the stash with some tinsel I picked up last year after Christmas. Oh and I forgot to mention the best part, we have special handmade Christmas Pillowcases. Call it unnecessary but it’s a small way to spread the cheer throughout the boat! I don’t think any of us thought it would take as long as it did for us to use them but use them we have and what a difference it made! 

This past Christmas, we planned to have not only our first Christmas on the boat, but our first friend Christmas! We had planned to meet a couple of other boats at Magnetic Island to celebrate. The weather ended up interfering and unfortunately, one of the boats wasn’t able to make it. The downpours that were predicted to hit seemed to magically (Christmas Magic!!) bypass Maggie and we had the most glorious day. 

Christmas Eve was spent on land with some friends. This picture pretty much sums it up! :)

Photo Credit: Jeff Coates

On Christmas Day, we woke up had a special breakfast, spent the morning opening a few presents and calling our family and friends. We then headed over to our friend’s boat where we spend the afternoon eating and hanging out. It was a wonderful low-key day! 

Photo Credit: Bec Richards

From Bryce, Batty and I, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope you had a lovely day wherever you were!