Christmas Day

      Daniel and I got up early on Christmas morning, but it wasn't because we were too excited to sleep (I think those days are long gone). We had to get out on the ships early if we wanted to interact with the sailors before breakfast was over and the new shift started. Daniel and I (ok, mostly Daniel) spent the last few days baking lots and lots of chocolate chips cookies. That was some fun family time.

 

So it was just after 7:30 am when we headed out in our borrowed car, loaded down with chocolate chip cookies and two pump pots of hot chocolate. The sailors on the first ship we visited were finishing up breakfast and you could tell they were not enjoying life at that moment. It was hard to be friendly and offer cookies (it seems such a trivial thing at that moment).

Many turned us down. This was only the first ship and we had six more ships to go! Soon I realized that we got the tired sailors who had been up working the night shift. The fresh sailors coming on for the shift change were a lot more friendly and, well, awake.

I was more encouraged. I mostly just followed Daniel around and let him be the face of this project and introduce himself as their new chaplain. It was sweet. By the time we got to the last two ships, the shift change had been completed and the sailors were "in hiding" in various nooks and crannies of the ship.  So, we took advantage of this and got some fun pix of Sky in the Captain's chair on the bridge.

In the end, we had a good time going from ship to ship. It was the first time that Daniel was on all seven of his ships, and it was perhaps the ONLY time that I ever would get to! Not to mention Sky! So it was fun experience.

When we finished with the seventh ship and the cookies were gone and the hot chocolate was drunk and Skyler had fallen asleep, we headed home.

We hope your Christmas was a good one!