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.