{"id":2843,"date":"2013-12-29T08:26:56","date_gmt":"2013-12-29T16:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2843"},"modified":"2013-12-29T08:26:56","modified_gmt":"2013-12-29T16:26:56","slug":"yuletide-brings-us-all-together-at-sea-12252013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2843","title":{"rendered":"Yuletide Brings Us All Together \u2013 At Sea \u2013 [12\/25\/2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Christmaspin2\"<\/a>Christmas future is far away
\nChristmas past is past
\nChristmas present is here today
\nBringing joy that will last<\/i><\/p>\n

No matter how many times I do it, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever fully get used to Christmas ship-side. There\u2019s part of me that always cringes at it, because it really is so<\/i> superficial, and yet\u2026and yet\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still Christmas.<\/p>\n

As is tradition onboard, the ship pretty much suspended operations at ten o\u2019clock this morning so that everyone could take up residence in the show lounge where there was hot chocolate and egg nog and the requisite slightly awkward Christmas carolling. The children from the kids program performed their carefully rehearsed and yet still somehow slightly falling apart version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and then the announcement bell rang out from the ceiling<\/p>\n

Ladies and gentleman, we have detected an unknown object on our radar that appears to be making its way swiftly in our direction. At this time we do not anticipate any danger but we will keep you informed on the developments as they continue, thank you very much and enjoy your day.<\/i><\/p>\n

Every year they do it, and every year the gasp and the giggle that goes up from the kids makes me sniffle a bit.<\/p>\n

The rest of the day remained surprisingly quiet. Though the internet was slow as frozen molasses because every single person on board was trying to write home \u2026understandable, but frustrating for those who kept getting kicked offline!<\/p>\n

When evening rolled around the crew was invited to Christmas Dinner. Once a year they block off one entire side of the buffet restaurant (as in they actually close the big fire-screen doors) and give us a private Christmas party, the one night a year when no one cares if you\u2019re late for shift because everyone who could yell at you is sitting around you. A thousand person strong \u2018family\u2019.<\/p>\n

My real family is scattered to the four winds right now, on different ships, in different countries, some of them aren\u2019t even anywhere near a working phone line \u2013 but none the less, it still managed to be a Merry Christmas\u2026with just the slightest, ever so slightest, lingering taste of oranges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas future is far away Christmas past is past Christmas present is here today Bringing joy that will last No matter how many times I do it, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever fully get used to Christmas ship-side. There\u2019s part … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-holiday-cruises-2013"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-JR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2845,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2843\/revisions\/2845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}