Christmas Asea

Christmas Eve!

We went to Le Bistro for dinner, the very nice French place on the ship. Our musical director kept asking if anyone wanted to share the beef with him, because there is an option of a 32 oz. steak for 2 that will be cut tableside. No one responded, so he went ahead and got the whole thing for himself, which made all of us laugh very hard. Especially since a photographer came over and said “pictures pictures” and then “why are you chewing! You are still chewing!” to Rodney. Rodney got upset and said “Because I’m eating! You came and bothered me in the middle of my meal! Of course I’m still chewing!” and we all laughed very hard, while the photographer gave him an annoyed and scolding look until his chewing was taken care of.

Today is Christmas, which means, of course, they are still having both the art auction and Bingo.

I went to the midnight service in the giant theater. They kept the door open, so we could hear a game of craps that was going very well for one guy through most of the service. Our preacher was a gentleman who used to be a linebacker for the NFL and is now a chaplain for the NFL amongst other things (advisor for foreign dignitaries? And Africa?), which he told us about in his service. He was joined by an Augustine monk in robes. The preacher was also joined by his wife, who lead the a cappella singing of the Christmas carols, which were spelled out in a PowerPoint presentation.  He spoke with delightful and hilarious bombast, heavy on the catchphrases and football metaphors and joke book jokes. He had a nice suit on and started sweating heavily mid-sermon, which covered as many Christian subjects as he could cram in there, including a bunch of latin and greek roots for words. Also, the prodigal son, the Good Samaritan, John 3:16 and Easter and the four types of love. He had quite a few bald jokes, because he is a large, bald African-American gentleman: “God doesn’t put MARBLE TOPSSsss on CHEAP…FURNITURE.”  We sang the First Noel, my favorite part being the second chorus which goes: “Noel, Noel, (breathe) NO-O-EEL, NOOOO-OOOO-EEEE-EEEL!” and was spelled on screen like this: “Noel, Noel, Noel, Nooooooooooooeeeeeeeelll” and the woman leading the songs sang the last chorus like the first one so everyone got confused.

The congregation was about 50-60% crew and a few passengers. The monk finally got to talk during the benediction, and he tried for some of the first guy’s bombast, which came out hilariously. He gave a very nice benediction, although he had a hard edge to his voice about “we got this present that we DIDN’T. EARN. And we don’t know WHY.”

Then, on the way out, a very drunk Indian man holding a cocktail patted me on the back and told me “it is so great to see you come to this, because you do comedy!” and then I felt weird and like I should make fun of it, so instead I said “hahaha” and “I’m normal sometimes” or something weird. Then he said “it’s all spreading the love, isn’t it!” and he got the elevator and I ran up the stairs.

We had no gift exchange secret santa, because our Canadians didn’t want to do it for lefty facist reasons (well, one because he is Jewish, which is fair), so I gave my roommate a carved coconut frog anyway that she can hate and complain about. Also I gave my cast those sponge things that you store in a capsule and expand in hot water. They are non-toxic. This means I convinced two of them to put them in their mouth and let it expand with tea. This was completely hilarious.

So it was an okay Christmas. Our room steward said “I’m staying happy this Christmas! I’m staying drunk!” I took the high road and did not stay drunk. I did, however, have approximately 6 meals, probably 8, that consisted entirely of candy. Did I mention no one got any of the 2.2 lb. bag of Reese’s? Because I ate all of it? With a teeny bit of help from my roommate? But how nice is a Reese’s breakfast? Pretty nice? Yes. COPING!