Christmas Fun
December 26, 2008
Well, another Christmas has come and gone, though it joyfully continues to linger in the household. Mr Papa’s World celebrated another great Christmas.
It started a bit more than a week ago when Suzanne’s parents came to town for a visit. They timed the visit so they could be home for Christmas, but more importantly so they could see a couple of performances by Suzanne and the kids. Unfortunately, except for the weekend, I was working most of the time having just taken three weeks off for our recent Transatlantic cruise.
They got to see several Christmas programs of the kids at school, the kids’ Holiday Dance Recital at their dance studio, and Suzanne’s holiday show at a retirement community in Tucson. In addition, on Saturday, I cooked up an early Christmas meal (Turkey and the trimmings) for the group as we celebrated an early Christmas with gift exchanges. It was a wonderful visit.
On Christmas eve we spent some family time watching a couple of movies and getting ready for the big day. I cooked our traditional Prime Rib Dinner for Christmas eve. We usually attend Christmas mass on Christmas Eve. In the past, Christmas Eve mass has been at 6:00 pm which has made scheduling a bit difficult. With a new priest this year, mass moved to 7:00 pm which is actually better for us. We were able to enjoy our Christmas Eve dinner (the Prime Rib turned out perfect once again) around 5:00, go to mass, and return home about 8:30 for our traditional exchange of family gifts, minus the ones we did early with Suzanne’s parents.
My big gift I received this year was a smoker. I am anxious to try it out and will be doing so today as I smoke some ribs, chicken and a pork roast. I will update everyone in another post on how that comes out. I am excited to try a new area of cooking that I haven’t dabbled much except an occasional effort on the grill with some wood chips. Yesterday, I started the curing/marinading process of the meat.
It was after midnight before we got to bed on Christmas Eve as we enjoyed our glasses of champagne. Luckily for us, the kids have not traditionally been early risers on Christmas morning. I remember bugging my parents to get up quite early some years. It was a bit after 7:30 when we finally were awakened in the morning by Savannah.
Its also been a family tradition that the kids sleep in our room with us on Christmas Eve. It was a lot easier when they were smaller! The tradition started because of how our house is laid out with the kids rooms on the opposite side of the house from our room. We didn’t want them coming to our room in the morning and passing by the Christmas tree where they could see if Santa came or not. That was always Mr Papa’s job in the morning to go take a look and get the answer and fire up the Christmas lights. So, the family sleeping together tradition continues except now we tend to bring in a couple of extra mattresses.
Christmas morning, as our family tradition goes, is spent opening the gifts for the kids from Santa. It remains a great family experience. The latter part of the morning is spent doing any assembly required work on the gifts. We also watched It’s a Wonderful Life together.
I had planned to do my smoking on Christmas day as another big feast, but my smoker had been scheduled to arrive on the 23rd, but didn’t arrive until Christmas Eve. So, I instead did my smoker assembly and seasoning on Christmas day and we had left overs to eat. The big feast will be tonight as mentioned previously.
Today will be spent playing with the new games and enjoying some of the new Blu Ray movies the kids received.
Barcelona and Transatlantic Cruise 2008 – Day 6 – Day at Sea
December 1, 2008
Today was a day at sea as the Celebrity Summit begin its journey toward San Juan, Puerto Rico. Days at see tend to be our favorite parts of the cruise which is one of the reasons why we chose a transatlantic cruise for this years vacation.
The day at sea provided us a great opportunity to relax and somewhat recover from our hard pushed tours of Barcelona. The kids spent a good portion of the day in the Kids Club Fun Factory. They really like being in there and the counselors do a fantastic job of keeping the kids having a good time.
In the AM, I attended a cooking demonstration by the head chef of the Summit. He prepared a paella dish and some sangria. The chef, hailing from Canada, had a good sense of humor and stage presence which added to the demonstration. I also spent on hour on the balcony just staring at the ocean and the Spanish shoreline as we made our way towards Malaga, Spain. I love just sitting there and relaxing.
In the meantime, Suzanne attended her Cruise Critic Roll Call event. Cruise Critic is a popular cruising forum site where folks gather. About 100 people had gathered on that site for the past year and discussed the upcoming cruise. This was their ship sponsored party to meet and greet each other. I did not go as the cooking demonstration appealed to me more.
After lunch, Suzanne took about a three hour nap while I walked the ship a bit getting some exercise. I also enjoyed the scenery for hours in several different locations including our balcony. It was quite a relaxing and enjoyable afternoon. It definitely makes me long for more cruises.
Tonight was a formal night so I cleared out of the room early and headed to a lounge to enjoy a Belvedere on the rocks and some music while the girls prepped and primped. I returned to the cabin about 30 minutes before Suzanne’s arranged meeting time in the lounge with some of the Cruise Critic folks to get myself showered and dressed in my Tux. We enjoyed a nice glass of wine and conversation with those folks before dinner.
Dinner was again outstanding. I had a very nice traditional French Onion soup to start as did Suzanne while the kids enjoyed a Cream Chicken Dame soup. Sean must have been feeling hungry from his time in the kids club because he went for two shrimp cocktails at the beginning and Suzanne enjoyed a crab cocktail. Suzanne loves her salads and also had a very traditional Caesar Salad. I like their Caesar Salads here too but haven’t had one yet since I am still trying to avoid too many courses.
For our entrees, Sean chose the Beef Tournedos while Savannah, Suzanne and myself opted for the Roasted Pork Loin stuffed with apples and prunes. All of them were very delicious as usual with Celebrity. Suzanne closed with her traditional mixed berries. Sean had a Napoleon and I had the Cherries Jubilee. Savannah, having had ice cream a bit before dinner, passed on dessert. The Cherries Jubilee was very good. I wish they still made it at your table like some of our early cruises but certainly understand the safety issue for not doing that anymore.
After dinner we attended the musical performance of Jack Walker. He does a wide variety of music in his review of songs from both sides of the pond. When he sang his opera songs, he was just outstanding. I thought a lot less of his more pop style songs though Suzanne still enjoyed them more than I. Overall it was an enjoyable performance.
After the show, which ended about midnight, we switched venues to the Champagne Bar for a night cap. Savannah hung with us for about 15 minutes but called it a night and went to bed. We ended up hooking up with a English couple and talking to them. Eventually most of the activities staff, the Celebrity singers and dancers, the Celebrity Orchestra and the Cruise Director ended up partying with us until about 2:30 am.
It’s always nice to talk to the performers on the cruise and getting their perspectives on the upcoming shows. Suzanne even chatted with Jack Walker for a bit. There is a magician that will be performing on the ship a couple of times and he wants to use the kids in his show. Sean is excited about this. He managed to stick with us the whole way until we headed for the cabin calling it a night about 2:30 am.
Tomorrow we make a port of call in Malaga, Spain. Given the late night today, it is unknown if we will even venture off the ship.
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