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PRINCESS CRUISERS: HOW ARE THINGS WHERE YOU ARE?!


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23 minutes ago, bigenna said:

To change the subject 🥳- how have you all been managing the usual Christmas shopping and gift giving in this very unusual year.?

We have no little ones so we have talked things over with our adult kids and all decided that since we are confined to our own households we will have a Christmas in (hopefully) the early spring.  
We still have the house decorated and will cook a small dinner and contact by some form of video chat.  

We are having a regular Christmas.  Presents bought, cookies and goodies baked and decorations all up.  We moved last year to be closer to my son and this year he will come over and spend the day with us.  He is not in a relationship right now so it will just be the three of us.  I usually meet him on his day off every other week for lunch anyway and have been since everything opened back up in May.

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Ours will be similar to normal. Our CA daughter was coming, but had to cancel. She's not usually here, so it won't be different, but we are disappointed. We'll have steak, potatoes, veggie, bread, and a dessert, plus wine. We think only four to five (daughter's boyfriend is on work call) including our granddaughter.

 

I'm making most of our gifts this year. Daughter's boyfriend will get a Lowe's giftcard. Everyone else is home made. CA daughter's will be late. We had budgeted time to make them in time for Christmas Day and ordered something late. Now we have to ship them. I mailed my parents' late too, but they should get it in time. I was supposed to visit them in January, but cancelled that too. Ugh.

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As long as things continue the way they are currently in Qld, my parents will come to my house. There will be the five of us, my husband, myself, Mum, Dad and our Labrador. Think he might be 1 of the most spoilt dogs on Christmas Day.

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5 hours ago, bigenna said:

To change the subject 🥳- how have you all been managing the usual Christmas shopping and gift giving in this very unusual year.?

We have no little ones so we have talked things over with our adult kids and all decided that since we are confined to our own households we will have a Christmas in (hopefully) the early spring.  
We still have the house decorated and will cook a small dinner and contact by some form of video chat.  

As noted several weeks ago, we had planned to meet our oldest in Spokane, WA last month. We four were to go up in the motor home and our son was to take an overnight train from his small town in MT and we'd pick him up at the station and enjoy Thanksgiving together. That didn't work out, even though he had self-isolated for two weeks and we had done the same. Cases were just way too high in his area, including close contacts of his. We had hoped he could come down to SoCal for Christmas. Unfortunately, the post-Thanksgiving bump has made Christmas together inadvisable. My heart is broken. 💔

 

I sent his gifts up to him, including his stocking. That was the hardest part. I made Hanukkah and Christmas masks and sent them as well. He has been wearing them to work, and his students have been laughing and rolling their eyes. 

 

As with Thanksgiving, we will have a Zoom Christmas with him. I will cook prime rib and turkey breast, with all the sides and desserts for Christmas Eve. My younger brother's family and my dad will come get take out from my driveway. My mom lives right around the corner from us, and we will bring food to her. I'm going to double up on the side dishes and desserts. I have a Honey Baked Ham reserved for Christmas Day. I'll send it, with all the doubled sides and desserts to the extended family on Christmas Eve. That should take care of meals for both days for everyone. 

 

We will have family game nights online with the oldest: Club House Games and Jack Box games. 

 

We have been doing the memory jar thing for several years. This year's jar is understandably sparse, but I did pull a few notes out of the jar and sent them up to the oldest so we could still read them together on New Years Eve. 

 

We are determined to both be responsible and safe and to hold on to traditions as much as we reasonably can. 

 

Most of our gifts are charitable donations which would be important to the person in whose honor they were given, homemade gifts, and gifts from companies which make donations with each purchase or which serve the greater good (for example, I bought bath bombs and shower steamers for my nieces from a company which employs and educates refugees). For my dad, we made donations to several campaigns on Fund the First. We've donated to nine other charities on behalf of family and friends.

 

After we had made our donations, my mom announced that she will not be giving any gifts to the family. but will be donating more that she would usually spend on behalf of each of us. She asked to charity ideas from her surviving kids and grandkids, and we have all given her ideas. 

 

Although we always do charitable gifts for my parents, it is nice to do so for others this year. I think we might just make this a tradition. 

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Our "Christmas Dinner" is actually a bit unusual. We don't really cook a Christmas Dinner. We always had our big Christmas on Christmas Eve. We make Lumpia (Filipino egg roll) with a dipping sauce and I often make hot wings. (I once told a bank teller I had to go home to get started on the Lumpia and I thought she was going to cry. She said she sooooooooooooooo wished she could come home with me. She was from the Philippines and missed things from her childhood.) We always had a kind of open house where the kids were here and some of their friends and some of our friends would come by to party a bit and eat. Later we opened all the presents. We always had a big tree with lots of presents. It's different now that we're old and this year will be even "more different". Poop. We're still making the Lumpia. So there. Bite me COVID.

 

Note: We may not do a "regular" Christmas Dinner but I will darned sure have the New Year's Eve Ham. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yeah. Ham. Ahhhhhhhh... 😍

 

 

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3 hours ago, MamaFej said:

As noted several weeks ago, we had planned to meet our oldest in Spokane, WA last month. We four were to go up in the motor home and our son was to take an overnight train from his small town in MT and we'd pick him up at the station and enjoy Thanksgiving together. That didn't work out, even though he had self-isolated for two weeks and we had done the same. Cases were just way too high in his area, including close contacts of his. We had hoped he could come down to SoCal for Christmas. Unfortunately, the post-Thanksgiving bump has made Christmas together inadvisable. My heart is broken. 💔

 

I sent his gifts up to him, including his stocking. That was the hardest part. I made Hanukkah and Christmas masks and sent them as well. He has been wearing them to work, and his students have been laughing and rolling their eyes. 

 

As with Thanksgiving, we will have a Zoom Christmas with him. I will cook prime rib and turkey breast, with all the sides and desserts for Christmas Eve. My younger brother's family and my dad will come get take out from my driveway. My mom lives right around the corner from us, and we will bring food to her. I'm going to double up on the side dishes and desserts. I have a Honey Baked Ham reserved for Christmas Day. I'll send it, with all the doubled sides and desserts to the extended family on Christmas Eve. That should take care of meals for both days for everyone. 

 

We will have family game nights online with the oldest: Club House Games and Jack Box games. 

 

We have been doing the memory jar thing for several years. This year's jar is understandably sparse, but I did pull a few notes out of the jar and sent them up to the oldest so we could still read them together on New Years Eve. 

 

We are determined to both be responsible and safe and to hold on to traditions as much as we reasonably can. 

 

Most of our gifts are charitable donations which would be important to the person in whose honor they were given, homemade gifts, and gifts from companies which make donations with each purchase or which serve the greater good (for example, I bought bath bombs and shower steamers for my nieces from a company which employs and educates refugees). For my dad, we made donations to several campaigns on Fund the First. We've donated to nine other charities on behalf of family and friends.

 

After we had made our donations, my mom announced that she will not be giving any gifts to the family. but will be donating more that she would usually spend on behalf of each of us. She asked to charity ideas from her surviving kids and grandkids, and we have all given her ideas. 

 

Although we always do charitable gifts for my parents, it is nice to do so for others this year. I think we might just make this a tradition. 


This is a wonderful idea. When my husbands Grandmother was still with us, she never needed or wanted ‘things’. So we put our thinking caps on and decided to sponsor a Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat from Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, which helps care for the wombats and animal hospital for injured wildlife. We continued this each year she was alive as her gift towards her favourite Australian animal. We also took her to visit the wombat.

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Thrak, my kids could rightfully be accused of being lumpia addicts. I've never made it myself, but they have many friends whose families make it. My kids get so excited every time there is a pot luck, because they know that friends will bring lumpia.

 

If you give my husband some lumpia and pancit, he will be a very happy camper. 

 

I hope you enjoy your "different" celebrations.

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We have very little family around so Christmas has always been quite small.  We each have one grown son, both single still, although mine recently started seeing a young lady and he’s indicated that she is likely “the one”!   So family might start enlarging in the next year or two.

my husband and I will cook a scaled down Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve - still have to have a small turkey, I made cranberry jelly, and I’ll be making what both our sons have come to expect as our traditional dessert.  It is a layered cheesecaky dessert called pistachio delight, which one refers to as “that green stuff”.  I’ve tried different after dinner sweets a time or two, but to Veiled looks Of disappointment - so “green stuff” it is.

We’ll be making up to go plates for both of them and having a short outdoor chat, and that will be it for this year.

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We seldom have Christmas right on Christmas anyway--too many different families, all wanting a time together, so we will likely have a nice meal at home or possibly with our son and family the only ones close, or even eat out.  With family in four different states, presents have been sent off.  We will open gifts with the Nebr. contingent a few days after Christmas.

 

We've had Covid (fairly mild) as well as several others in the family and Nebraska does not have a stay at home order, but we will keep things small and safe.

 

I did even more of my shopping online then normal this year, and stayed out of the stores as much as possible.  Shopping crowds are are pretty big here.

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I come from a family with 11 children.  Every Christmas eve we all would gather at Dad's house in the country for a party.  Each sibling would bring way too much food and treats and the day was spent eating and opening gifts and usually an impromptu touch football game, weather permitting.  Christmas Day would then be spent with our individual families for our own private celebrations, but invariably almost everyone would eventually would show up out at Dad's so he wouldn't be alone on Christmas Day. 

 

Dad passed away a couple years ago and that Christmas dynamic was lost so we all seem to do our own thing now.  We all miss those Christmas eve get-togethers.

 

With Covid concerns, this year will be just the two of us and one daughter who lives nearby with her husband and our two grandkids and their border collie Percy.

 

Merry Christmas to you all!

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Just the two of us this year, but turkey is thawing with hopes of cooking Christmas Eve, but we’re flexible.  We never buy gifts for each other for any occasion.  Instead, we plan, research and buy something special together so we get just what we want and have the fun memories of the shared experience.  This year it’s a new tv (great for gaming!).  Past years we’ve decided on cruises, though it will be awhile for that again.  Ho ho ho!

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Our "Christmas Present" to ourselves this year was supposed to be a 33 day B2B2B featuring Southern Australia, New Zealand, and Queensland. We would have returned home on December 13. Of course we never left home so that plan went out the window. It would have been a great "present" though.

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Needed a box in which to wrap a present for our only (so far) great grandchild. It's a dorky sort of "what's this" and "wow this turns" kind of toy with a bit of (unbreakable) mirror to look at while he's turning stuff, etc. He's barely 7 months old so kind of at the "considering thinking about wondering about things" age. The box I found that was a perfect fit was a Pliny The Elder box. Likely the only 7 month old to be "getting" a Double IPA for Christmas!  (Fortunately he won't know the difference. If it was me I'd be very disappointed upon opening the box!)

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Like many others, Greg and I will be doing dinner for two this Christmas, since our children are all a plane ride away.  I will make cornish hen, veggies and roasted potatoes and a mini yule log. All gift buying was online this year.  No malls or big box stores for us.  We usually host a holiday party for friends of any or no religion, but not this year.  We will zoom with family during dinner and Greg's granddaughters will open gifts using FaceTime, so that we can watch them.  And since everyone is healthy, we will count our blessings and pray for a very different 2021.

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My California daughter/boyrfriend/grandson were coming for Christmas, but she got sick and her doctor advised her to stay home. They should be here now and we miss them. We will get together with our youngest daughter and granddaughter tomorrow. We're having super-traditional steak and fixings for dinner. I should go finish making gifts now. . .

 

Anyone else track Santa on NORAD? It's one of my favortite things to do on Christmas Eve.

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5 hours ago, PurpleHays said:

Anyone else track Santa on NORAD? It's one of my favortite things to do on Christmas Eve.

 

Me, too!  I have him up on another tab right now.

Sign of 2020.  Santa is wearing a face mask despite the fact that up there he is already social distancing.

Just me and hubby for Christmas in our home.  Lots of telephone contact with loved ones though.

Merry Happy Season Greetings Christmas Holiday!

🎅🤶🌲🎄
 

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Christmas morning treat of Jamaican Blue Mountain that our local coffee roaster imports for the holidays... ummmm.  As expected the turkey has not quite thawed so we’ll have burgers and fresh pumpkin pie tonight plus champagne to make it even more special, and I’ll cook tomorrow.  Have reached out to family this morning and just off the phone with my oldest pal, which was lovely.  I have a book, cat is lying next to me on the lounger, Phil is in the garage cycling on his trainer (Zwift software has him riding in France today) and at least for this moment all is right with the world.  
 

Merry holidays, and hohoho!

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Merry Christmas to one and all. We all had very very very full tummies yesterday. My parents joined my husband and myself along with our fur baby Labrador. Guess who was the most spoilt .... 1 fur baby. At least he’s still playing with them all but particularly likes Bluey and Bingo (characters out of the animation show Bluey). Everyone had a good nap 😴 after lunch in readiness for dessert. 
 

At least it was a beautiful Aussie day here where I live, a little warm but not too hot 🥵. Could hear lots of neighbours having fun in the backyard and in the pool. Lost count how many bikes and scooters went by our house .... we’re guessing a lot of kids got new bikes 🚲 and scooters 🛴 for Xmas.

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D'Oh!  Power went out. No idea how long it will be dead. Fired up the mobile hot spot on my phone for Internet access on the laptop and can see a web page showing the extent of the outage but there's no cause listed yet and no estimate of when service will be restored. My wife has some candles going.  She's connected to her own phone's hot spot.

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On 3/21/2020 at 1:46 PM, CineGraphic said:

We "medicated" ourselves last night.

 

I'm so happy that I took a picture of the drink menu, showing the ingredients for the Ultimate Mai Tai

 

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Yesterday on Christmas, we made "Princess Pride" drinks that I learned from Princesses' Mixologist on a Zoom Class!  Really yummy!  Hope they add it to the ship's drink menu!!

 

RLfXWaUxRZu1tkQ%JmNcjA.jpg

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