Christmas Eve Eve, I got off work early and spent a lovely afternoon on the top deck of Wiffersnapper with Will and the cats, oh and a few glasses of whatever this drink was that Will concocted to resemble a Christmas tree… and our citronella candle.
Christmas Light Bike Ride
After dinner, and about four glasses of the Grinch punch, we decided to take a night-time bike ride up and down the streets of Fort Myers Beach to look at all of the Christmas lights and decorations. We had a great time jamming out to our Tropical Christmas playlist, and taking photos of the clever light arrangements.
My personal favorite was the canoe with the Nativity set inside, and of course Rudolph leading the way.
Second favorite was the guy who strung out the word “Ditto” on his roof with an arrow pointing to the extravagant light display his next door neighbor had going on. I laughed for a good two minutes at that one.
Jesus Was Born!
Christmas Day finally arrived and I started the day early with 8am Mass. The service was beautiful, and I love the fact that I can ride my bike to church from the marina… in December!
After church, I came home and baked Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, just like we would do every Christmas morning at my mom’s house.
This Christmas was our first, maybe second Christmas where we were not in Maryland with our families participating in the traditions we did every year prior. While bittersweet, Will and I enjoyed each other’s company and making our own traditions here in Florida. Tipsy Christmas light bike ride being one of them…
Christmas Gift Unveiling
While Will and I didn’t exchange gifts (buying the boat was enough!), we still had a few presents under the tree, i.e. a wine gift basket from my bosses and a huge, unwrapped box of boat accessories we ordered as my mom’s present to us.
Knowing very well what was in the box, I opened it with enthusiasm and SURPRISE it was four new black boat fenders!! Yay, just as we ordered them, haha!
You know you’re strange when you get excited for boat fenders as your Christmas present… oh and we spent our Christmas gift money on a new marine head (toilet). Thanks to everyone who contributed to our new head! While it wasn’t under the tree, I was equally excited for it as I was the fenders, promise.
Not having anything else to do, we decided to go put on our new fenders! We admit that Wiffersnapper isn’t the sleekest, prettiest boat in the world, so any cosmetic upgrade we can do is really exciting to us.
Christmas Festivities Continued
Soon, Bobby and Christina came over to have Christmas dinner smorgasbord. We decorated cookies, sipped egg nog, and whipped up a fresh batch of our new seasonal favorite Apple Cider Moscow Mule.
Bobby and Will fished from the boat, and ended up catching something rather unusual…
Yes, that a Publix shopping cart they fetched from under our boat! Will and I were livid to say the least. Was that really under our boat?
If we had tried to pulled the boat in or out of our slip at low tide that could have done serious damage to our running gear! Grrr…
All that money we pay the diver who cleans the bottom of our boat, and you mean to tell me that he didn’t see the freaking life-sized shopping cart under our boat?? …(deep breath).
As you can tell, I still haven’t gotten over the shopping cart incident.
However, I tried not to let that ruin my Christmas spirit! So we headed to the beach for our second annual Florida Christmas tradition – watching the sunset!
Christmas 2015
Last year we had to pile in the car and race to the beach, find a parking spot, and scurry to the sand before the sun dropped in the water.
Christmas 2016
This year, however, we simply strolled across the street to the beach, sat in nice lounge chairs at the condo complex we claim as our own, and strummed the ukulele while watching the big orange ball sink into the water.
Ahhh… what a peaceful sight to watch and how blessed we are to experience God’s beautiful creation of the sun and moon, day and night, beach and sand, shopping carts and moscow mules. đ
Ringing in the New Year
Fun with the Wiffullens crew didn’t stop there! (Wiff + Mullens = Wiffullens)Â Bobby and Christina (Mullens) joined us for NYE to bring in the New Year in young-folk fashion. Since we hardly ever go out, and we now live on Fort Myers Beach, one of the liveliest night-life areas in SWFL, we made it a point to go out and celebrate.
Of course no New Year’s celebration is complete without NYE gear, so I hit up Walmart for their classy hats, glasses and beads to make sure we went out in style.
We had fun!… I know, a bit of an understatement.
But between the fireworks, rum punch, selfie-ing with our favorite bartender/sushi server Devon, attempting to walk 3 miles home because Uber was $200, and singing Happy Birthday to the trolley bus driver whom we flagged down and ran after, it was a night to remember… or to try and remember rather. #goodtimes
Post-Holiday Discovery
Since this was our first holiday aboard the Wiffersnapper, we thought it would be nice to snap a pik and send out an actual Christmas card to our family members. We had cute holiday outfits for the cats from the year prior.
Santa for Ryback and a Reindeer for Turbo. As you can see, they LOVE being dressed up! Tehe!
Getting the tripod all set up we, we dressed the cats and carried them out to the bow. About 10 takes later we got the shot that was “good enough” with everyone looking in the general direction of the camera.
I was so excited to order the cards and send them out that I slipped them in our marina’s outgoing mail box slot a week early! Christmas Day passes and nobody mentions the card to us… so I finally ask Dad if he received it and he said no.
The next day I marched up to the marina store and asked if they ever check their outgoing mailbox slip. Their reply, “what outgoing mailbox slip?” Ughhh… so we unlock the box and retrieve my stack of Christmas cards sitting there, decorated in stickers, stamped and ready to go.
Lesson learned: Don’t trust the marina to send your Christmas cards… or keep shopping carts from sinking in your boat slip.
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