Christmas Countdown

In lieu of the traditional fly everybody in and spend a bunch of money on presents, this year the family is all meeting in Miami and taking a one-week Caribbean cruise. No need to even put up a tree!

And throw it over the port side of the starboards bows aft!

Pitch the ham, prime rib and Turkey with it

This year already having "Black Friday" junk, next year maybe Fourth of July starts the season?

Just got back from a cruise. 28 days. 5 ports in Hawaii then on to the South Pacific. Visited Tahiti, Bora Bora, Pago Pago, and Moorea. Got back last night and... it was cold! Damn. All those days in the sun and now it's back to reality.

I met a couple on Amtrak from the Dallas area going to Los Angles to ride that cruise which left on Oct 8th out of LA Harbor (San Pedro). I left the day before on Oct 7th from there on the Norwegian Pearl on a 2 week cruise thru the Panama Canal to New Orleans.

Near the end of September the Home Depot and the BJ's Wholesale Club both had Christmas decorations on display. TV started showing Christmas themed advertisements around Halloween. I miss the days when you didn't think of Christmas, or see anything related to it, until the day after Thanksgiving.

This summer someone said that it was six months until Christmas. We laughed and indicated that it would be here sooner than later. Well, now we are in the Season and counting down the days.

I like the idea of a cruise vacation at Christmas - that's cool and probably takes a lot of stress out of the holiday. However, what do you do on Christmas day then if you're not exchanging gifts? Perhaps that works better for those without kids because kids would surely uprise in revolt at the thought of no presents.

when the kids were all younger we had Christmas at our house, as they grew older they wanted to do Christmas at their house, we had four kids as you can imagine it caused problems, one part of the family say their going to Hawaii every year for Christmas and want thanks giving at their house every year which caused more problems so we told them all we will have Christmas and thanks giving at our house and if they cant come we will miss them and hopefully after a while they will visit for Christmas and thanksgiving and then go home for their own family thanksgiving and Christmas, me and grandma are a lot older now so we don't travel much but she loves to cook and has me decorate for the season "but I'm not allowed on a ladder any more" lol

I still want my Thanksgiving turkey thighs and apple pies! Then it should be onward to summer! The only good thing about Christmas (to me) is the modern spins some folks take on the traditional yuletide tunes. The commercialism is revolting.

Jeez... I sound old and crochety!

The count down for My favorite holliday...

Halloween:razz:

It's become a Hallmark holiday.

Raise the Prices, lower the quality and they will still pay !!

Someday we may take a Christmas cruise. However, they really jack up the prices for those.

Several times in the weeks before Christmas we Cruse the neighborhood, looking at Christmas Decorations. We love to see all the Religious Scenes, being they are now "Politically Incorrect", as their numbers have increased dramatically.

I'm totally ready. Just like years past, I will buy all gifts a week before the big day!