Christmas Spirit

Even though Venezuelans start decorating their homes for Christmas already in October, the Christmas spirit for us is slowly setting in as it’s still a little unusual , especially for me ,to see decorated palm trees and the tropical weather just does not remind me of Christmas. It’ll get more Christmassy when I start baking traditional Swiss Christmas cookies this week. The marina crew has been wonderful to us and are doing everything to make as feel at home and in the meantime became good friends of ours. As a thank you we took them out for a Christmas dinner at our favorite Chinese Restaurant. You probably wonder why Chinese for Xmas right? All the locals that we know here go only to Steakhouses and so we thought Chinese would be different. We had hats made with our Paradise logo which was our Christmas present for them including a bottle of wine for the girls and rum for the boys. I think Adrian has never had Chinese food before as his face was right in the plate and he still is raving about the dinner. We sure had fun and quality time with them and we will invite them more often for dinners.

Looks like the marina is coming back to life, “T’Zaddi” John and Gerry came back and a new boat arrived “Dock Queen” with Bill and Debby on board. Plus Chris and Luima are back from the States so instead of just four people at the potluck we were a happy family again, just Jim and Jenny were missing.

Most boats have left for the Golfo de Cariaco, the Christmas winds as they call them blow strong from November on and make it unpleasant for cruisers. Except for those staying behind in marinas like us, we sit out on deck with a cocktail and enjoy the cool evening breeze waiting for January to come so we can start the cabin sole project. Most of the country on vacation 15^th of Dec to about Jan 7^th, not bad.