Twas Christmas Day

Twas Christmas Day, And all through the Harbor
Not a creature was stirring, ‘Cept the heron for fodder
As most of you know, we’ve moved to the water
Who needs a goose
When you can have Christmas on the Neuse (as in Neuse River)?
So me in my kayak and DJ too
Set out like two paddling fools
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a Kingfisher who drew quite near
“Ho, Ho, Ho and Merry Christmas,” said the spiky little fellow.
“Come back to my house, where we all can be mellow.”
When we arrived, Oh what a treat!
With guests like ducks, gulls, ospreys and more
We had quite a feast of crab and sushi galore
Crabcakes for us, bread for the turtles
Don’t worry about the deer, they had our crepe myrtles
After lots of laughs, we came back home
And wrote down this poem
From us, our feathered friends and fishes
We wish all of you blessings and holiday wishes

December Yak Attacks

Let's see . . . . . .

According to the calendar, Monday was December 15th. That means that today is Wednesday, December 17th. What is amazing about these two dates? They both possessed GREAT kayaking weather (as is evident by the picture below).



Want to know something else? If I tell you, do you promise not to hate me? I went kayaking both days in a tank top and capris! Yeah. That's the usual 'yak attack attire when it is partly sunny and 70 degrees out.

Let's see if you can top that in the middle of December.

Spirit of Christmas

Oriental, North Carolina has got to be one of the most Christmas spirited towns in the US. Even in today's economic times, this town decks the halls, yards, boats, stores, streets and bridge in holiday spirit. After being sick for three weeks, our visit to Oriental and their Spirit of Christmas festival and parade gave me plenty of 'Holiday spirit.'

How do you get your dose of the 'Holiday spirit'?

Early Christmas present

My husband and I are so romantic. While other couples may pine for jewelry (the women) or electronics (for the men) for Christmas, my husband and I decided to get ourselves a joint gift. One that we will enjoy for many, many years to come.

Yup, we bought ourselves 53.71 feet of bulkhead. Ain't it pretty?

I've been a sickie

Oh boy! It has been nothing but one sickness after the other since Thanksgiving. Here's the short version: Caught a cold; sick for one week; thought I was feeling better the Monday after Thanksgiving; got worse two days later and by Friday, I had been tentatively diagnosed with mycoplasma infection (more commonly known as community-acquired, or walking, pneumonia). As of this Monday, I was feeling better and working on a freelance project that is due before Christmas. However, after six days of antibiotics, my gut was in full rebellion and decided to let me know just how much it didn't like doxycycline. And, now we are up to present day. I've still got four more days of antibiotics, but I now feel as if I'm OK if I step more than 10 paces away from a toilet. That wasn't the case this morning.

It has been frustrating to me (being the sick one), my husband (whose wife doesn't want to do anything-not even bake or make bread-yeah, you know how sick I was now), but the cat has certainly enjoyed the plethora of naps I have been taking. Mostly, I've been napping on the couch so that, during my lucid moments, I can enjoy our lovely Christmas tree.



Even the kitty has been enjoying the tree, as is evident by little green pieces of artificial tree that have been showing up in hairballs and in the litter box.

In a Pickle

Christmas tends to bring out a little mischief in some of us (even during a time of recession). The mischief in our household comes out in the old German tradition of hiding the pickle. Now, this is a PG rated blog (most of the time), so get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about the Christmas pickle ornament.

Here's a brief rundown of the old German tradition: The whole family gathers to decorate the Christmas tree. Once done, the parents shoo the children out of the room, hide the pickle ornament on the tree and then bring the children back in the room to search for the pickle. The child that finds the ornament first gets an extra gift.

DJ and I have modified the tradition. I hide the pickle, he looks for it; he then hides the pickle and I look for it. At the end of this fun game, we do have a small gift exchange. Some of my best memories involve this game. There have been years past where I have laid down, head underneath the tree, flashlight in hand trying to find a damn green pickle ornament on a green tree. You think it wouldn't be that hard, right? Yeah. You try it. One year, it took me 24 hours to find the pickle. It was stuffed into the pants of a cloth Santa ornament. Yes, that still qualified as 'on the tree.'

Two years ago found the girls of my poker group crowded around our tree searching high and low for the ornament that had been hidden by our husbands. One of the girls was 8 and 1/2 months pregnant and determined to find that pickle. With DJ's little flashlight that straps to his head firmly on her head, she moved our presents out of the way and wiggled her pregnant self underneath the tree. My fear was that she would start laughing so hard her water would break and she would be forced to deliver with her head underneath our tree. (Alas, that did not come to pass. She gave birth to a baby girl two weeks after our party.) She eventually found the pickle, but only after her husband got some great pictures that he still cherishes to this day. In fact, they loved the tradition so much, they now share it with their two girls.

You never know . . . . If you come to our house this holiday season, you might find yourself on a pickle search!

Deck the halls . . . .

Sing it with me now, good blog readers . . . .

Deck the halls
While coughing up your left lung.
Fa, la, la, la, la,
La, la, la, la

What? That isn't how the song goes? Well, that's how it goes in our house. Yes, yours truly has been sick with New Bern's finest, longest lasting sinus/chest/sore-throat with an annoying-most-lingering-won't-go-away cough. Started Sunday. As in, Sunday, November 23rd.

Not to fear. In between bouts of croup-like coughing, we have managed to decorate the house and put up six Christmas trees (so far). I say 'we' because even Ginger has gotten in on the activities as our official furry supervisor.