#537 Christmas at Sea - Top Ten

Christmas at Sea.  What a fabulous idea!  

The sea was calling so we sailed 8500 miles around Central and South America on our favorite ship, the MV Explorer, with 8 bold friends while making tons of new friends, docking in 10 foreign countries, and creating a boatload of great memories.

The photos are many (the brave can click "See all our photos") and the highlights greatly outnumber the photos.  So let's count down ten highlights for a glimpse of our holiday at sea: 

Highlight #10 - shortening our winter by traveling to 10 foreign countries all in tropical climes.

Highlight #9 - enjoying the 9 celebrity spottings each day in the shipboard library.

Highlight #8 - convincing these 8 dear friends that spending a Christmas at sea was the perfect plan.

Highlight #7 - celebrating Kelly's birthday dinner under the stars on deck 7 with presents creatively wrapped with toilet paper and seasickness bags, drinks from the pool bar, and fun stories of how everyone met.

 
Highlight #6 - arising at 6 AM to enter the Gatun Locks of the Panama Canal.

Highlight #5 -  keeping the average length of the computer support waiting line down to 5.

Highlight #4 - meeting in person that 4-legged animal so vital to the Incan civilization - the llama.

Highlight #3 - delivering gifts at 3 AM on Christmas morning so Santa could avoid the watchful eyes of our late-night friends and our early-morning friends.

Highlight #2 - visiting 2 public libraries: one in Montego Bay and this one in Cartagena.

Highlight #1 - spending the 1 day before the predicted end of the world at the 1 place we wanted to be.

Yours in appreciating Santa, the Mayan calculation error, the Incan ingenuity, and our intrepid friends,

Mary

#536 Christmas at Sea

Season's Greetings!

Kelly and I have celebrated most of the significant holidays at sea - Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine's Day, Saint Patrick's Day, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, my birthday month.  

But never have we celebrated a Christmas at sea - until now.  This December, we will be sailing on the MV Explorer with an enrichment voyage to Central and South America. 

Our itinerary includes the Bahamas, Jamaica, Colombia, Panama and its canal, Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica,  Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico.

We'll be in Costa Rica on December 25 where the high temperature for Christmas Day averages 87 degrees.  So that severely limits our chances of a 2012 white Christmas.  And although the cabins on the MV Explorer are quite nice, there's no chimney for Santa's big entrance.  Christmas 2012 will be different.

Want to find out whether Santa can find us in Costa Rica?  Want to experience a snow-free Christmas season at sea?  Then come join us!  Let me know by November 15 for the inside scoop!

Yours in Ho-Ho-Ho-ing at sea,
Mary
 

#526 Christmas reading

Christmas reading is fun!

To compile my Christmas 2011 reading list, I searched the PS shelves in Alderman Library; I re-read Fannie Flagg's A Redbird Christmas; and at the public library, I even found a Christmas-themed mystery set on a cruise ship.  Ho! Ho! Ho!

• The Birds' Christmas Carol, Kate Douglas Wiggin
• Christmas at Monticello, Helen Miller
• A Christmas Blizzard, Garrison Keillor
• A Christmas Card, Paul Theroux 
• The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church, Kate Douglas Wiggin
• One Christmas, Truman Capote 
• A Redbird Christmas, Fannie Flagg
• The Romance of a Christmas Card, Kate Douglas Wiggin
• Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea, Mary Higgins Clark
• Winter Solstice, Rosamunde Pilcher

This year's favorites were both written by Kate Douglas Wiggin.  I don't know how I've missed these two Christmas gems for so long, since Kate also authored Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and founded the Salmon Falls Library in Buxton, ME!

The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church,1907

The Romance of a Christmas Card, 1916

If the Alderman Library is not convenient, you can download these early-20th-century titles for free from your favorite e-book vendor.  Now that's a merry Christmas!

Yours in unabashedly enjoying Christmas romances,
Mary

#522 Christmas Dozen

I love a good Christmas movie! Aren't I lucky the list of Christmas films is so long?

I tried out a new holiday film already this year:  The Tsarina's Slippers, a Russian opera composed by Tchaikovsky and performed live at London's Royal Opera House.  I like the opera, especially the Cossack dancing scene in Act 3, but my top dozen Christmas films (including one from every decade since the 1940s) remains unchanged.

Be sure to let me know what's missing from my list of favorites.

12. Scrooge (1970)

11. A Christmas Story (1983)

10. The Holiday (2006)

9. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

8. Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)

7. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

6. Holiday Inn (1942)

5. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

4. Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

3. It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

2. Love Actually (2003)

1. White Christmas (1954)

Yours in a fabulous cinematic Ho! Ho! Ho!

Mary

#432 Christmas is all around

From Strasbourg, France (the capitale de Noel)...

to Washington, DC...

we've found that, in the immortal words of Billy Mack, "Christmas is all around."

Yours in believing in the magic of Christmas,
Mary

#431 White Christmas

What's better?  The movie White Christmas or the musical White Christmas or an actual white Christmas?

This year, we were lucky enough to experience all three.

The 1954 movie White Christmas has long been my favorite Christmas movie.   I watched it again this year to make sure Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye could pull off the Christmas miracle and save General Waverly's inn in Vermont from bankruptcy.  And yes, with lots of musical numbers and romantic hijinks, they are able to do just that.

The musical White Christmas is new to our Christmas traditions.  Though it premiered in 2004, we just got around to seeing it this year at the Empire Theatre in Richmond.  Though the story lines differ a little, the live production featured vocal powerhouses in the leading roles, fun song-and-dance numbers, and snow showers over the audience at the conclusion.  Our expectations were high and we were not disappointed.

But driving home through the snow-covered Charlottesville streets on Christmas night after a fun afternoon and evening with friends wins the White Christmas contest in 2010.

Yours in White Christmas heaven,
Mary

#416 Mappy Christmas

Yours in mapping where Christmas trees are born,
Kelly

#413 Mappy Holidays!

We've officially kicked off the holiday season by hosting an after-work Mappy Holidays party on Friday for an enthusiastic Scholars' Lab crowd, followed by a dusting of snow on Saturday. Bring on the holidays!

Yours in getting the holidays off to a very mappy start,
Kelly

#360 Christmas with the Germans

No one does Christmas like the Germans. That’s what my sister has been telling me, so we went to see for ourselves. Kathy and Mark moved to Wiesbaden (birthplace of John McEnroe) in October, so they had plenty of time to find a home, move out of temporary housing, start a new job, and plan our holiday vacation.

We took the train south to Bavaria (just steps away from the Austrian border) to visit two castles, Germany's most popular attractions. Thousands of visitors come each day in the summer to see the castle that inspired Cinderella's castle at Disneyland. Christmas week is definitely a better time to visit! Schloss Neuschwanstein (new swan stone palace) is visible from Schloss Hohenschwangau (castle of the high swan county). These two castles were built by father and son, each Bavarian kings. Neuschwanstein was built by the son in homage to the operas of Richard Wagner and the rooms are decorated according to each opera or story.

We also took a road trip on the autobahn to visit two of Germany's medieval walled cities - Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Dinkelsbuhl - both on the Romantic Road. We enjoyed the German Christmas Museum with its giant nutcracker, the bratwurst and other wursts, the spaetzle, the strudel, the Riesling, the Hefeweizen, the efficient German rail service, the German Christmas markets, the German word for five, saying Gesundheit in its native land, seeing the Christmas tree in its native land, the artistic tombstones, and the outstanding German hospitality.

In addition to our family (who sort of have to), we were welcomed especially well by the train conductor, the train dining car staff, the Fussen bus driver, the Fussen taxi driver, and the non-English-speaking Dinkelsbuhl restaurant staff.

Yours in planning a return trip,
Mary

#359 Snoopy's Christmas

Remember Snoopy's Christmas?

The Baron made Snoopy fly to the Rhine
And forced him to land behind the enemy lines
Snoopy was certain that this was the end
When the Baron cried out,
"Merry Christmas, my friend"

According to wikipedia, The Royal Guardsmen recorded Snoopy Vs The Red Baron first,

then recorded The Return of The Red Baron,


and finally Snoopy's Christmas.

Sure - I learned the words to Jingle Bells first, but it's Snoopy's Christmas that I still sing today!

So to properly celebrate my first Christmas in Germany, my sister took me across the street from her home in Wiesbaden (not that far from the Rhine) to the Südfriedhof Cemetery and the final resting place of Manfred "The Red Baron" von Richthofen

Christmas bells those Christmas bells
Ringing through the land
Bringing peace to all the world
And good will to man. 

Yours in crying out, "Merry Christmas, my friend,"
Mary

#358 Holiday Break

Ho! Ho! Ho! We're taking a holiday break from our blog.

In 2006, our librarian friend Christina met us at the train station in Los Angeles when we were en route to the ship for our first Semester At Sea.

Now Christina and her husband Dan are leading the international lifestyle and have recently moved to Glasgow, Scotland. To read about their adventures in finding their way around in a new country, you should check out Christina's blog, Hennessey Overseas.

Her blog may be more fun to read than ours, but don't forget to return to ours for more Johnston adventures in 2009!

Yours in kicking off the holidays,
Mary

#356 Christmas memories

"Time is unstuck for me now. I am rampant with memory for no reason except that I'm caught up in it." - Hagar, "The Stone Angel"

Unpacking my Mary Jo stocking opened the Christmas memory flood gates. That stocking has seen a LOT of Christmas mornings.

And here are a few other memories that are starting to show some age...

1963 Fairfax, Virginia With my brother and younger sister not really dressed for the holidays but still on our best behavior in case Santa should be watching.

1965 Fairfax, Virginia With my brother and two younger sisters in our holiday finest. How come I don't have a cool hat or a cool purse?

And finally, to make all the Christmas memories come rushing back, I enjoy watching the Grinch how it should be watched: on this rabbit-eared, old-school Christmas TV site.   Nod to Todd.

Yours in full-on, sappy, Christmas sentimentality,
Mary

#355 Christmas trees

We don't have an artificial Christmas tree.

We don't have a silver tinsel, electro-dynamic, fiber-optic, multi-colored Christmas tree like our cool friend Matt. And we don't chop down a "real" tree either. All this leads to some funny looking stuff in our house at Christmas time. Our creative friend Joyce supplies us with chic holiday decorations that we use to add spark to our celebration. This Chrismoose door knob decoration is just the tip of the iceberg.

In 2003, Kelly found some sticks to make our own version of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree in our Indianapolis dining room. Hanging on the tree is a Joyce-created Santa made of okra.

In 2004 with sticks scarce in downtown Indianapolis, we converted a poinsettia into our Christmas tree by placing it in our living room and arranging packages under it. It seems just the right size for us.

And for 2008? We're using a red metal tree, slightly more than a foot tall. It combines the Charlie Brown stick-like characteristics of the 2003 tree with the red of the 2004 poinsettia tree. Perfect!

Ho! Ho! Ho!
Mary

#354 Christmas with Lilah

To kick off the 2008 holiday season, we nostalgically present a 16-year-old Christmas video!

For Christmas 1992, I invited my hammered dulcimer teacher - the one and only Lilah Gillette - to play some holiday dulcimer tunes for a party in our Overland Park home. Lilah and her son Don thrilled the crowd with their flying hammers and their heartwarming personalities. Thanks to the thoughtfulness of friend Allison for the original recording in 1992 and thanks to the magic of digitization in 2008, you can see and hear the sweet melody of Jingle Bells and Silent Night.

Yours in loving Lilah, the hammered dulcimer, Christmas music, and the magic that comes from combining all three,
Mary

#261 Ho! Ho! Ho!

During this holiday season, we are blessed to find ourselves in a great state.

Geographically, we’re in the great state of Virginia. Officially we’re known as a commonwealth, but due to our state of newness, we’re in the habit of calling it a state.

Mentally, we’re in a great state of mind. We’re happy in our new jobs and have fun, challenging projects ahead.

Domestically, our current home is in a state of flux. We’re renting our home but we may soon enter a state of confusion as we work through the real estate network to find our permanent home. East coast housing prices have us in a state of shock.

Technically, we may be somewhat shy of state of the art. Our computers are in a state of emergency now that they’re 5 years old. Our cell phone has a black and white screen. We’re yet to send a text message. And the next iPod we buy will be our first.

Personally, our state of the union is strong. We’re 13 years together and in a constant state of euphoria.

For our current state of affairs, be sure to visit us here on our blog.

Yours in merry stateliness,
Kelly and Mary