Last weekend we did the decorating of the boat in preparation for the Christmas holiday. This is the first year with the Grandsquids living on board with us that we will be having Christmas morning on the boat. Which, as all of you with kids know, this means that we need to be sure that Santa can get on board since we don’t have a chimney and that we have a tree ready for him to put gifts under. We are still locating that perfect spot to hand the stockings 🙂
Since moving aboard, Deb and I would always just put up a small table top Christmas tree and it was more than enough. But, I am a huge fan of Christmas and really like having a big tree. Deb gives me a hard time because she knows how much I like to come home after dark and see the Christmas lights on. We leave them on the whole time we are home as well.
So this year I actually found a 7 foot christmas tree that is only about 18″ in diameter. It breaks down into 3 pieces and comes with a wide stand and is pre-lit. I was thrilled. Now we have good headroom in DreamChaser. So much in fact that we were able to make this work, however we did have to fold the top sprig of the tree over and can’t get the angel on top of it as it literally presses right up to the ceiling.
I used a small bungee wrapped around the top of the artificial tree pole and connected it to a point that we happened to have accessible to us and viola, full size tree height on a boat.
The girls helped me decorate the tree and sadly Deb was really feeling under the weather. She had caught a pretty bad cold while we were in New Jersey last week (See the video here about that trip) so she was not wanting to do much other than lay down and rest.
Chaz, Swab and I put all the ornaments on the tree and then got motivated to also decorate the outside of the boat with lights as well. We put colored christmas lights all around the lifelines and perimeter of DreamChaser and since we also have Last Affair in the slip next to us, we went ahead and ran lights up the mast to the front and back of her as well.
When we got done with that we celebrated with delicious peanut butter cookies with [amazon_link asins=’B01EHPNZWS’ template=’ProductAd’ store=’dreamsf-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’c9e92ec9-d8f8-11e6-a526-69f26a175054′]hershey kisses on top. My mom always made these growing up (actually she still does every year) and they have become an expected and welcome part of Christmas. We didn’t go the homemade route (Sorry Mom) and ended up just using a boxed mix that was still pretty good. Certainly not as good as making them from scratch, but there was beauty in the simplicity. some water, oil and an egg, and mix away.
| So it is with this post that the countdown to Christmas starts to really go quick. It is essentially a week away at this point. I can’t believe how quickly it has gotten here. We have the boats decorated and we have some of the Christmas gifts purchased. Actually most of them but there still needs to be that time and place issue of going through things and wrapping them and keeping them hidden until the right timeDon’t be afraid to decorate your boat as well for Christmas, we really love the Christmas season and since moving aboard the boat, we have not changed much about the way we celebrate it. We ensure there is a tree every year, we love to bake Christmas cookies and this year will also be hosting a Santa Visit as well. | [amazon_link asins=’B01EHPNYII’ template=’ProductAdSmall’ store=’dreamsf-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’e39a389d-d8f9-11e6-b479-99849dd15257′] |