The sun is shining, the grass is green
The orange and palm trees sway
There’s never been such a day
In Beverly Hills, LA
But it’s December the 24th
And I am longing to be up north…
And so it starts.
This morning, tired hands grope blindly to the backs of closets and office mail boxes to pull out faux velvet Santa hats, hair is curled, and clear lip-gloss painted on over top red lipstick so that we all look like some version of uniformed elves. All in preparation for approximately 200 children and their families to rush up our gangway to spend the holidays with us.
The ship will erupt with noise and lights and yes…snow. Snow thrown by hand by us but snow none the less.
The ship has already been loaded with the essentials, I’m sure the storage units below decks have several gallons of eggnog, extra chocolate, and if we’re lucky they’ll bring in mandarin oranges this year. Last week every public area sprouted a Christmas tree, there’s a small snow-trimmed forest in the Atrium, and yesterday they put up the giant gingerbread house in the lobby.
It truly is beginning to look a lot like Christmas…
It’s beautiful, it really is. But it isn’t home. All of that, and it still doesn’t feel like Christmas. Not really. I know it’s there somewhere under all the glitter and garlands Christmas is there, but it’s like something you can sense, or see out of the corner of your eye, but not quite catch on to. I can even feel it deep down inside me, but I can’t seem to summon up the energy to bring it to the surface and that upsets me a very great deal.
Christmas on ships is a very unusual thing, because you’re so busy making sure that everyone else feels in the holiday spirit that you very seldom have time to indulge in any of your own traditions, and by the time things finally slow down it’s Jan 1st and you’ve got a whole other year in front of you and you’re wondering where on earth the holidays went!
I think what it really comes down to is (and this is going to sound very strange), oranges…
Let me explain before you start looking at me like I’m crazy. In the 1970s musical film Scrooge, there’s a scene where Bob Cratchitt’s children are peering into the toy shop window, Tiny Tim of course, has something much wiser than his years to say, while his sister only has eyes for the glamorous doll standing in the corner. Later on, as they stand watching their father buy fruit for their Christmas dinner, they have the following conversation:
Fruit Seller: You’re quite right Mr Cratchitt, with the size of your family these apples are the best bet
Sister: I’d rather have the dolly in the corner
Tim: I’d rather have the oranges
As children, we all long for the “Dolly In the Corner” that great glimmering what-ever-it-is that all our friends seem to have that we don’t. We press our noses up against the glass and cross our fingers and whisper a wish under our breath that Santa will bring it to us.
I was no different. I was also lucky, I usually got the Dolly in the Corner – with the exception of the time I asked for My Little Pony Paradise Estates Playhouse, which even back then was exorbitantly expensive. Looking back I have no idea how my parents managed it, looking back I realize that money was tight, and that there were times when I got everything I wanted but my mother got a cheese grater. You don’t see that kind of thing when you’re little. So many things went off-kilter in my childhood, that I think my parents were determined to make Christmas one thing that would always go right, no matter what it cost them. All children are selfish in their own way, and I feel bad now that I never noticed.
Anyway…when we’re little, it’s all about the “Dolly in the Corner”
In a very real way life on ships gives you that. You’re presented with everything you think you could ever want: fantastic decorations, great entertainment, amazing places to see, amazing food, a relatively care-free life style. In a very real way, the ship gives you the Dolly in the Corner…and oddly enough, that’s when you realize how little all that means.
When the trappings of Christmas have shrunk from a massive nut-cracker scale fairy-tale tree, and a house that looks like it came right out of a Christmas card – to one tiny little feather tree decorated with doll-house ornaments and Christmas glass-markers and one strand of smuggled mini-lights…
It’s then that you realize just how much you’d rather have the oranges. Rather have a smile from your mom, a hug from your best friend, turning over the Christmas carol record on your father’s player…or even a phone call from someone you love on Christmas morning…
All those shining gifts that make peace on earth…
Like I said…just at the moment…among all the glamour and glitter and red-painted smiles…I’m silently craving ‘oranges’…
well written where do you get this from…Merry Christmas
D