2019 Christmas & Kwanzaa Cruise

We’d long since stopped waking up early in the morning to open presents. Now, the priority was documenting the Christmas scene, including our outfits before we dove into the gifts.

My niece and I were the first two ready…for nearly 20 minutes.

We finally had six people all together like a family.

My sister dubbed it the “crazy” pose. She doesn’t get out much.

I believe we were too close to the camera, but I love how this shot picked up the texture of my locks.

He thought he’d cancelled the emergency signal, but at least the firefighters had a sense of humor. They asked my brother-in-law if he’d burned Christmas dinner. Absolutely not! All the food turned out fine.

My sister’s family and I met other extended family and friends in a parking lot around 1 AM. After loading up our things, we all zonked out as comfortably as we could. We took one rest stop break, then a few hours later, ate breakfast at a restaurant in NC, where ten other extended family and friends joined us on the bus.

The kids on the bus cheered when we turned the last corner, bringing our cruise ship into view at a port in Charleston, SC. Since this was my first ocean cruise, I didn’t know if the boarding process would be as much of a hassle boarding a plane.

Turns out, it wasn’t, especially since I shared a cabin with my parents. All three of us were expedited through the line since Dad used a walker and a portable oxygen device.

While still in customs, one of my sisters gifted me a lanyard, which turned out to be invaluable. I realized that in the madness of the holiday season, I’d failed to research what one should pack for a cruise, which was uncharacteristic of me.

All the preparations I’d made for various things during the month of December had drained my energy. Packing for this part of my vacation was where I’d dropped the ball. In addition to not having a lanyard, I didn’t have a small bag to take a water bottle, towel and other things to go around the ship and when we disembarked at Nassau and Half Moon Cay. Plus, I totally spaced bringing enough cash for incidentals such as tipping baggage handlers or buying lunch off the ship at restaurants, which didn’t accept credit cards. I couldn’t believe that in this day and age business people wouldn’t accept credit cards. Just allot money for the fees as part of business expenses!

Once we cleared customs, I led my parents to the 6^th floor on the ship, where our cabin was. I consulted the map near the elevator and walked straight to our cabin despite Mom questioning whether I was going the correct way.  Additionally she questioned how we’d get our keys since we hadn’t gone to guest services.

I’d noticed envelopes tucked above the room number placards and hoped that the room keys were in it. We arrived at our cabin, just like I figured we would, and found our envelope with the keys in it, just like I figured they would be.

As soon as we entered the cabin, mom said there wasn’t enough room to “curse a cat.” I mentioned that the expression was “not enough room to swing a cat,” but she doubled down. We had to play cabin twister the entire time if more than one of us were walking around since their king size bed and my twin bed consumed most of the real estate.  To gain a little more floor space, I asked our cabin steward to remove the mini fridge. In its place, I put Dad’s oxygen condenser, but it couldn’t use the outlet the fridge had used because it was a different voltage.

The upside: no iron in the cabin. Big victory for me since Mom would’ve nagged the shit out of me about ironing my clothes. Her choices were to live with wrinkled clothes or send them to be ironed. I’m proud to say, she chose the former.

Found myself doing those horrid line dances. The hardest thing about doing those monotonous dances was doing those monotonous dances. 

She had her back to the view during our first breakfast. She nor Dad didn’t even go to the upper deck to see the island when we were docked. Dad joked that they were like hermit crabs. On the last full day, my sisters and I finally got them to the open deck, but we first had them walk around the track twice although Mom tried her best to get out of it by first looking over the railing to see what other people were doing. After the first lap, she wanted to do a line dance because the music was playing, but we made her use that energy to take the second lap. We found them two seats in the sun and told the nearest married couple to take notes from our parents, who’d been married for 58 years. 

which included a brunch buffet. One of my sisters and an older cousin, who was now a grandfather, co-emceed the event. I read a poem to remember deceased family members. While I was up there, the host in me took over.

After reading the poem, I explained that whichever branch of the family they belonged to or was invited by as a family friend, they would come up on the stage for a group picture. Then, one member of that group would introduce everyone.

Prior to the start of the impromptu program, I had discussed this activity with my sister, who initially wanted to pass the mic and let each individual introduce themselves. I shot that down because I feared it would turn into an unwieldy quasi-graduation event.  

(yes, that IS the actually surname!) introduced everyone in the group. Representing the Floyd Strange (#11) branch, in lime green, Mom fulfilled that duty.

in red, Theodore, Jr. fulfilled the duty, which included both Theodore the III and IV AKA “Q,” who was told he’d have to continue the naming tradition.

in yellow, one of her grandsons, who was a grandfather himself, had an easy task since so few had attended the cruise. Make no mistake, this was a prolific branch of the family.

In total, there were twelve Strange siblings, of which, my maternal grandfather was the eleventh. Only nine out of the twelve had descendants, but no one from the other six branches of the Strange family came on the cruise.

I wish my immediate family would choose holiday cruises instead of exchanging gifts since it’s better to make memories. I envied a woman I’d met while gently boiling in the hot tub, who pitched just that deal to her family four years ago and they’ve been cruising every year since.

I asked Mom to allow me to interview her on stage. Of course she didn’t want to do it, but I convinced her to sit in one of the two chairs I’d placed on stage. I grabbed the mic and sat down to ask her questions. Many were questions I’d asked her over the eight years I’d produced the Austin Writers Roulette because I’d written essays based on her answers.

We really got everyone’s attention, discussing our racist dog, Sandy. Mom steered the conversation to Sandy not allowing an Avon lady to visit the house when dad was home but Mom was not.

When I asked her about the first time she fired a gun, Mom said, “Oh, you mean the time I almost killed my brother?” Even the kids stopped playing cards to hear that story. Apparently, one of Mom’s brothers had been late to pick her and her sister-in-law (my aunt) up. Mom joked about pretending to shoot him when he finally showed up. My aunt, not wanting to risk harming her husband, suggested firing the gun out of the window to make sure it wasn’t loaded even though they saw no bullets. Sure enough, there was a bullet in the chamber. Mom never touched gun again.

but he absolutely loved it. He spent most of his waking hours drinking and gambling. I was pleasantly surprised when I caught him drinking ice water, which I could easily identify because ice floats in water, but not in vodka. He actually disembarked during our Nassau stop because the casino was closed until six PM.

He made quick work of shopping at the market. He’d already bought a Bahamian fanny pack when my sister and I found him parked in his motility scooter. We assisted him in buying a straw hat. Afterwards he joked about the next thing he needed to buy: a drink.

Although most items on our dinner menu were already included, alcohol, soda, and prime cuts of red meat weren’t. I didn’t miss having a glass of wine with dinner as much as I thought I would. I wasn’t merely being a cheapskate. I wanted to see if I’d experience motion sickness.

So, I drank lots of water throughout the day. Still, I ate more frequently, including about 3-5 desserts daily, especially the 24-hour self-serve chocolate frozen yogurt. At least I had CBD to put in my morning glass of water, which kept my ankle pain at bay for the most part and had the added benefit of keeping my colon rolling, which I credit the CBG for that.

but she was dead set against disembarking the following day at Half Moon Cay. Instead of docking at a port, the ship docked close to the shore. Anyone who wanted to visit Half Moon Cay had to take a water shuttle in form of a small boat. There was no way in hell Mom was stepping off a ship unless it was upon terra firma!

nothing like the previous water shuttle Mom had experienced with another cruise years ago. Despite the fact that we were the only ship docked, the beach with the complimentary lounge chairs was packed. Apparently one had to get up and off the ship far earlier than our little troupe cared to do.  

The rest of us threw a large beach blanket on the sand nearby. The water was cold, but we eventually got used to it, even my cold-natured sister.  

I thought the dance club opened at 11 PM, but it turned out to be 11:30. One drunk woman got rowdy about the doors not opening on time. Even her husband thought security was going to get her. He showed her on his phone that the doors would open later, but she wanted to use my phone as “evidence” that they’d advertised an earlier opening.

Then she wanted to us to bum rush the door by holding it open and telling us to walk through since we were first in line, but we didn’t budge. I don’t know if the other older black women in the front of the line had a similar thought, but the phrase “white privilege” kept replaying in my mind. I’m not sure what form of ship jail there was, but I felt confident that none of us blacks wanted to find out how we’d get punished more than our white counterparts. So we waited patiently.

Once we were legitimately inside, we secured great seats on the perimeter of the dance floor.  All the stadium seating on the sides of the club had been curtained off. So we were fortunate to have been first in line.

Around two AM, we hit the line at the 24-hour pizza place. For the first time ever, the line wasn’t terribly long. As I ate, I felt ready to be off the ship. Yet, that wouldn’t happen until the next day. I don’t know how anyone can stand more than a five-day cruise.

(That’s actually water beside the can of soda.)

to disembark in Charleston, to load the bus, to eat at the lunch stop, to get to the airport, to catch the connecting flight, to ride the airport shuttle back home. Everything progressed without a hitch.

Even so, I saw a break in the mathematical pattern within that chain of events. Looking for my seat on the first leg of the trip, I wondered about row 33 off and on for the entire flight. Reminded me of something out of a Hogwarts train platform. Then I thought about how Christ was allegedly crucified at age 33. I trust the explanation of the missing row was probably something far less imaginative, but what a joy to see creative stimulus within a routine ending of a trip.