Day 7—24-DEC--Christmas Eve!

Christmas carols.

Only a few shopping minutes until Christmas…and the stores are expensive!  Actually, I haven’t even been into a store on board yet.  We started our Christmas Eve with laundry.  The ship has a free laundromat, though with 670 passengers, the 6 available washers and dryers are irregularly available.  But, we managed to make it to the first trivia contest of the trip.  We usually enjoy the trivia (to varying degrees), but we also usually lose.  Well, we showed up just in time, and sat with a random couple as team mates…and we won!!  That meant we got two “stamps” instead of one.  At the end of the cruise we can exchange stamps for branded stuff like t-shirts, caps, and other stuff we don’t want.

Last night they told us the make up of the passengers on the ship.  The ship holds a maximum of (I think) 690, and we have right about 670, so nearly full.  179 of us are British, 139 are Australian, and merely 130 Americans.  So far, most of the people we have met seemed to be from Brisbane or Melbourne, both in Australia!

There was a speaker on Movies, who talked about “What makes a movie great”.  I enjoyed it for the most part, as it gave me a different way to consider movie quality and techniques.  He will be making a few other presentations over the cruise.

After lunch, we went to our second trivia contest, on 60’s music.  We sat with an Australia couple, who knew a lot more than we did, but we did not win.  Later in the afternoon, we did another trivia.  They showed pictures of temples and cathedrals, and we had to name the building and the country.  This time, we merely tied.  (I’ll take it!)  Afterwards, they had Christmas Carols, so we stood in the center gathering area of the ship while some of the entertainment staff sang various Christmas carols, and we joined in as we wished (more Theresa than me, I can assure you!).  They had a carol book and took “by requests”. It was interesting to me (Theresa) that most of the songs requested were religious! One woman commented to me that she was enjoying Theresa’s singing.  J

There was a large selection of things for dinner.  One of them was goose.  I am not sure if I have ever had goose, but I am quite certain I have NEVER had a Christmas Goose!!  So, in honor of Tiny Tim, I selected the goose.  It was good.  It wasn’t spectacular, but good.  Theresa had the coconut crusted shrimp, which we all know is the other traditional holiday meal. 

Ice Sculpture

We went to the show, which was a comedic magician.  He was really funny, poking fun at people in various ways, and incorporating it into a light magic show.  We both laughed quite a bit.  Then there was a “Tree Trimming” in the dining room.   They had all sorts of treats and sweets.  We could NOT figure out what this had to do with a tree or trimming.  But we enjoyed a few bits as a Christmas treat to ourselves.  Christmas Mass begins at Midnight, in just a few minutes, so we wish you all a Merry Christmas (from the other side of the world!).