Tag Archives: christmas

Christmas in a Remote Atoll

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It is always hard being away from your family and friends on special occasions like Christmas.  However, we always try to make the best out of every opportunity and this year was extraordinary.

We decided to stay in Likiep longer than planned for two reasons.  One: our friends on Totem were coming from Majuro and they were bringing us a small bit of food (eggs, milk, some produce) and a few parcels. This might not seem like a big deal to you because you can run down to the local store.  However, Matt and I have been away from “stores” for 2 months and have not had fresh produce, milk, or eggs in almost 2.5 months.  So we are super excited about our pending delivery (and seeing our friends!).

Two: we’ve met several super cool locals and really wanted to celebrate the holiday with them.  

Christmas Cookie Extravaganza

My grandmother had a tradition of bringing the family together for cookie baking day. I loved it!  Not only because I love to bake but also because it just brings such joy.  So, I have tried to continue this tradition every year.  I would invite my friends over to help me decorate (as this is truly my least favorite part of cookie baking day).  We always had so much fun, usually with wine and always with great company and tasty cookies.

It is a little harder to host cookie baking day on the boat, but I’ve been able to continue the tradition.  This was the first year that I had no friends around to invite over so I was “stuck” doing all of the decorating myself.  So forgive the sugar cookie designs.

It took me 3.5 days to bake 200 Gingerbread cookies, 150 Sugar Cookies, 100 White Mice (or Mexican Wedding Cookies), 2 batches of toffee, and 100 chocolate brownie peppermint bark cookies.

I then assembled 7 Christmas boxes and filled them with a variety of cookies.  It was so fun sharing them with the locals!

Decorating the Boat

We have such a small space but I always add some Christmas cheer.  

Christmas Church Services

My friends on Totem (Jamie and Behan) attended church with me at the Holy Rosary Catholic church.  RMI flew in a priest from Majuro (who is actually Fijian) to provide the services.  Fr. Maurice is lovely and reminded us how much we missed the Fijians! 

Most of the service was in Marshallese, but a small portion was in English.  It was so nice to see everyone dressed up, most in green and red clothing.  We recognized a few of the songs (the melody) and were able to sing along in an English version which warmed my heart.

After services we all gathered for a Christmas photo.

The chapel was decorated with love and presented a beautiful setting for the service.  I just love the giant clam shell for the Holy water.  

They had the most beautiful nativity set on display.

The Christmas Feast

Several days of preparation, 6 kitchens, and every family were involved in preparing for the Christmas Feast held at the community center.  We (Totem: Jamie and Behan and Queen Jane: Kate and Jordan) showed up and were met with smiles.  They placed beautiful floral leighs around our necks and escorted us to the guest table of honor at the front of the hall.  We sat amongst the priest, the senator, the head of the Cappelle and deBrum families and other special honored guests.  It was very unexpected and a complete honor.

The program included speeches from Paul, the acting mayor Paul, Junior (PJ deBrum) the head of the deBrum Family, head of the Cappelle family, the senator, and several others.  Fr, Maurice gave a welcome and closing prayer.  And in between, they gifted each child with a present, sang many songs and performed many dances to entertain the village.

The very large feast was served on handwoven baskets and included chicken, ham, hot dog, breadfruit, potato salad, rice, cookies, brownie, coconut water and juice.  They served the guests at the tables first, then everyone else stood in line to get their plates.  Pretty amazing that they were able to feed 140 adults plus all of the children!

Present Time

The Christmas presents were piled high.  One for every child.  Each child was called up to receive their gift and then everyone celebrated their blessing.  The deBrum family gifted us a beautifully woven crown, a necklace adorned with shells, fresh coconut oil, and some coconut “hooch”.

A few of the children came up dancing and earned a very large round of applause!  It was really amazing and heart warming to see the pure joy of the other kids celebrating their friends as they received their presents.

What a truly a magical Christmas holiday.  It was a huge privilege to be honored and loved by all of the locals on Likeip.  What a blessing.

This blog post was inserted , out of order, to coincide with the holidays. I am sure you understand.  Our blog posts will resume in the new year in the order we explored.  In our last post we explore that absolutely amazing treasures in the sea in Enemonit.

A Whangarei Christmas

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We headed to Town Basin Marina after we splashed.  It was no surprise to find that the Christmas cheer was in full swing!

We quickly put up a few lights and decorations.  Nothing compared to last year.  But I had to do something as I was judging the annual Christmas Boat Light extravaganza.  We did not have much time to do our full decorating, but we showed a little spirit.  if you recall, we won “Overall Best Boat” last year so I had a repuation to uphold.

The judges met for dinner at Local Talent, then headed to a cruiser’s boat called Rewa for drinks while we waited for sunset at 8:34pm!  Yes, it is summer here and the days are long!

Bribing the judges is strongly encouraged so we were gifted with lots of snacks, treats, and cocktails along the way.

Santa is played by Dave on the Rewa, Sharon is in the beautiful red dress next to santa.  The mayor of Whangarei is dressed in his royalty best and Matt was awarded Grinch of the year.

Santa asked that I be the bell ringer.  This was a really heavy and very loud bell.  After an hour everyone was tired of it but Santa insisted I keep ringing it – so ring I did.  That is until the mayor decided it was enough (around 10:30pm) and stuffed it with a shirt to quiet it down.

Lots of boats got into the holiday spirit with music, dancing, lights, and decorations.  It was a really great night!

A week before Christmas I finally got our decorations out.  It was killing me not being in the holiday spirit.  I feel so much better with them out.

Christmas Cookie Galor

I carried on the tradition of baking cookies for friends.  I used to do this with the ladies in our family when I was young and ever since I had my own kitchen I’ve carried out the tradition.  This year I went a little overboard with over 800 cookies (gingerbread, white mice, sugar cookies, peppermint bark), 3 batches of Toffee and 2 batches of caramel fudge!

I put together 12 gift boxes for cruising and local friends!

Myt friend Kara came over to help decorate the large sugar cookies which will be presented on Christmas day.  It was so much fun having her help to decorate – she brought her “A” game!

Of course we had the cookie monster there to help too.

There was some rose wine helping spur our creative side.

And the final product of 60 sugar cookies decorated in a rainbow of colors and designs.

A New Zealand Summer Sunrice from our dock at Town Basin Marina.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events normally.  But I moved this blog post ahead of the rest so that it coincided with the actual holiday season.

Christmas in Whangarei

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It’s Christmas in Whangarei!  The marina where we are staying is hosting a Christmas decorating contest and we just had to enter!  They had about 8 prizes ranging from Best overall to best small display, best local display, best international display and best display on the poles. 

For the first time ever, we decorate the outside of Sugar Shack.  Matt rigs a special platform for the light’s solar panels and hoists four 39 meter strands of light up the mast!  It is a gorgeous display at night, but unfortunately the bright lights on shore temper the colors.

Since, there was a competition, I took most of my holiday décor and put it in the cockpit.  I borrowed some garland and small Christmas pieces from the marina and gussied it all up.  I had two trees.  One tree was positioned on our electrical post and one in the cockpit.  Both lit up at night.

Cookie Baking Day

I spent 5 days baking hundreds of cookies.  I made gingerbread, white mice (Mexican sugar cookies), sugar cookies, chocolate candy canes with white chocolate frosting and peppermint shavings, and toffee.

Judges and Awards

The judges came by a week before Christmas. I was not past bribing them so I fed them homemade cookies and freshly chilled and spiced eggnog!  The judges are Kara (green shirt), the mayor of Whangarei (vest), couple with the bell and santa.  We invited a few friends over to be our supportive elves.  

We won a few prizes right on the spot.  Matt won a lovely Christmas apron and a beer belt and I got a beautiful pair of gloves with a fake ring and fur.

The awards were given a few nights later and guess what?  We won 2 prizes.  We won “Best overall” and Residence Choice.  This is what the judge said as she awarded our prize “”So the winner of this category not only start bribing us with cookies from November, they tinselled, they lit up, they dress up’d, they made Eggnog, they Baked even more cookie and got fully into the xmas spirit. Congrats to Christine and Matt from Sugar shack!”  We won a $20 bag of coins (for laundry and showers) and a $100 gift certificate!  Yeah

Christmas Eve on Sugar Shack

Sixteen of our cruiser friends were invited over for a Christmas Eve dinner.  We provided the pork tenderloin, eggnog, jello shots, white elephant, and christmas cookies.  Everyone else were asked to bring a special dish from their home country since we had Germans, Swiss, Lithuanian, and Swiss.

What a truly blessed day we had!  We started out with a traditional game of White Elephant where everyone was way too polite for my taste.

We quickly moved on to the eggnog and jello shots which livened up the game 😊

Santa even came and filled everyone’s stockings while everyone was enjoying the merriment (top left corner) and the goodies are shown in the bottom center photo).

It was an amazing way to celebrate Christmas with good friends, tasty food and lots of merriment.

Events from this blog took place on 24 December 2022.  Did you read about our Dutch Sinterklaas celebration in our last blog?