Feliz Navidad

La Cruz Huanacaxtle, Nayarit, Mexico
December 12, 2009

It's beginning to look like Christmas aboard CAPAZ

Though it is not the extended season that those of us from the land of mega-mass marketing are used to, the holiday season is picking up steam here. There are Christmas decorations in the stores and homes and Christmas Muzak playing at the big grocery store.The Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadelupe is December 12 and she is the patron saint of Mexico. Many homes have shrines in their yards or houses dedicated to her. At this time of year the shrines have extras lights and decorations added. Around the first of December, we started to see a few decorations that seemed to be more associated with the today's feast day.

Shrine in La Cruz

We have seen evergreen trees, mostly artificial, but even a couple of live ones both here in La Cruz and up in San Blas. There are lights at night on balconies and around windows. We even saw an SUV with reindeer antlers and a red nose on its grille and an inflated Frosty the Snowman. Poinsettias are native here and our resident friend, Ron, says they grow wild up in the mountains and are quite a sight to see. The ones that adorn homes and businesses here are beautifully lush.

Hanging Poinsettias in La Cruz

Austin and Bryce take a break for a possible stand-in "Santa Picture"

A Holiday Welcome to Casa Champagne

Christmas tree with CJ's beautiful collection of Swarovski crystal ornaments

Frosty the Snowman

Rudolph the red-nosed SUV??????

Little tree and lights on a house in La Cruz

Pinatas and a real Christmas tree in La Cruz

Manger scene at a restaurant in San Blas

As for Christmas here on Capaz, it is beginning to take shape. When we were packing to move out of the house and on to the boat at the end of December last year, we put aside a special box of Christmas stuff to bring on our adventure. I have always enjoyed decorating for the Christmas season and I am glad that we had the space available to bring our box, but more for the kids than myself. I am relishing the very toned down holiday season that we are experiencing here. We have had a tropical Christmas season when we visited the Harang family in Australia, but this is, of course a little different from the laid back celebration there. Anyway, when we were in Cabo San Lucas, Mary and I found a big fabric store, where I purchased an entire spool of white tipped evergreen colored garland for less than $10. The boys, with the help of the kids from Totem, have strung this from the headliner in the main salon and then hung our few ornaments from it. Austin took the remaining garland and wrapped it around a paper cone that he constructed making our little Christmas tree. He and Bryce have hung this little tree over our table. The final touch will be the lights which the boys have not quite gotten to yet is that they plan to wrap lights around our drogue (a piece of safety equipment that is used - hopefully never needed- during stormy conditions at sea to help slow the boat and prevent it from over-running big waves) which will be hoisted on the fore deck using the spinnaker halyard. Depending on how easy this last piece is to take up and down, we may not assemble and erect until a little closer to Christamas.

One thing that I did not realize that I would miss are the Christmas cards from friends and family which we would always hang on the big beam in our living room as part of our decorations. We did recieve a scanned Christmas card in an email from a graphic designer friend of ours who wouldn't dream of having us miss out on her creation this year. I am hoping that a few cards will come to us in the mail being couriered down here by our next visitors!!