Tuesday, December 24, and Wednesday, December 25, 2024
Tuesday was an unusually mild day, and Walt and I called a Lyft to take us from the Yacht Club dock in North Vancouver to the Pink Pearl restaurant in the City of Vancouver to meet Martin, Karen, and two friends with whom we regularly sing online Compline, and to enjoy a marvelous dim sum luncheon. We had great food and a great visit, and Martin then took Walt and me to his office in an Evo (car share) vehicle so that he could do a little work and collect the food and gear that he had stored in his office complex.
Walt was able to nap on the sofa, while Martin worked and I sipped an eggnog latte, and we then hauled Martin’s baggage down the stairs to the car, drove back to the Burrard Yacht Club, loaded the food and gear into a shore cart, pulled it the considerable distance to Braesail, and got it all stowed aboard. Martin and I stayed in the cockpit to read and work while Walt too another nap, and at about 5:30, we returned the shore cart to the Yacht Club’s entry way and drove to Christ Church Anglican Cathedral in downtown Vancouver to rehearse with the 25-voice choir for the two Christmas Eve services.
The large and beautifully-decorated Cathedral was packed at both the 8 pm and 11 pm services; the music–for choir, pipe organ, and an ensemble of two flutes, three violins, and viola da gamba (a bowed, fretted stringed instrument like a cello)–was glorious; and the sermon was very helpful to me. Between the two services, the Choir was served a full turkey dinner with a variety of delectable pastries for dessert.
The later service ended at about 12:30 am, and Martin and Karen went off on foot to find an Evo car while Walt and I sat on a bench outside the Cathedral and enjoyed the mild night spangled by the neighborhood’s twinkling holiday lights. It took awhile to locate a car, and we didn’t clamber back onto the boat until nearly 2 am. It didn’t take us long thereafter to find our way to bed after a lovely day.
CHRISTMAS DAY:
All four of us slept late on Christmas Morning and Walt prepared a fine Belgian waffle breakfast for us. After exchanging gifts, Martin and Karen returned on foot and by SeaBus to downtown Seattle to finish preparations for our Christmas Feast on Boxing Day in Snug Cove on nearby Bowen Island, where Sagres, the sailboat owned by Martin and his college friend Hans, is docked. They also planned to attend a Hanukkah dinner hosted by a friend, to spend the night in Vancouver, and to return to Braesail in the morning on Thursday.
Walt and I spent a restful, very-rainy Christmas day reading, listening to Christmas music, consuming cookies after dinner, and visiting by phone with Walt’s two younger brothers and their wives. I did a little work on DuoLingo French and wrote this blog post. We played two games of Backgammon before retiring for the night, and I actually won one of them!
May the love, hope, and joy of Christ’s incarnation, whose everlasting beauty is represented by the Christmas tree, fill your hearts this night and always!
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 
what a marvelous Christmas Eve your family experienced! I’d be envious except that I, too, enjoyed the miracle of Christmas. What came to pass for me, in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, was a kidney stone. One that had bedeviled and disabled me for a solid week. Surgery had been scheduled for the morning of the 26th.
Grace. That’s the best word for it.
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