December 2004
Email: cathellis@gmail.com
Hi,
I am really rubbish at writing Christmas Cards, usually I just don’t do it and pretend they got lost in the mail, but this year I decided to give it a try. As you can see there’s no money inside…I give you permission to shut the card now if you are feeling really disappointed!
Last year was pretty busy…I was on the Paradise over last Christmas and New Year. My most exciting moment on Christmas Day was making a wonderful salad and then having it cleared by a waitress before even starting it when I went to answer the phone. That bloody thing took me 30 minutes to make! You can imagine, I quickly lost my appetite!
After the Paradise I was sent to the Destiny, which had a wonderful 7 day run from San Juan to St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados & Aruba…it was bliss! It was a shame the Captain was the oldest in the fleet and was hated by every Crewmember with a passion. Well, that’s not true, the German Housekeeping Manager was really really mean…they had her fired!
After the Destiny I went on vacation. I rented a car and drove from Miami to Los Angeles, stopping in Orlando, Pensacola, New Orleans, Dallas, Oklahoma, Santa Fe, Flagstaff, Las Vegas, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and flew home from Los Angeles. It was great! Then I had three weeks back home which was lots of fun.
I came back to the Holiday in New Orleans in September and the ship was re-located to Mobile in November. I have since been sent to the Ecstasy in Galveston where I should be based over Christmas & New Year.
I like the idea of our Management Christmas Party. We are going to have a “Ruthless Santa Party”, where we all buy a present for $40. When someone picks a present and opens it, if they like someone else’s present, they can steal it, but each present can only be stolen 3 times…I bet we are all up all night!!
What I hate about Christmas is I never know what to buy for people. You have to take into consideration what would make a good present for someone. You have to consider what the person likes, what they already have, what they care about, what they need; basically you have to invest a lot of your time. And since time is the only thing none of us have anymore, we end up giving a box-set of Bailey’s Irish Cream with shot glasses with “Luck o’ the Irish” stamped on the front of them. It looks like a gift, it seems like a gift, but no one ever uses, drinks, or looks at if after December 26th.
Since we can’t, as adults, get away with throwing bad presents against the wall and bursting into tears (Sorry, with the exception of my sister Steph), Christmas is the time of the year when we all become really good at lying. Lying is just another form of acting, so in a way we are all actors in a forty-eight hour play that runs from the 24th through the 25th of December. I hate people who say “Where did you get it?” The nerve! Why don’t they just say, “Does the store give cash refunds so that I can return this and finally get something I actually want?” Quick fix: Buy all your gifts in Japan. That way, nobody wins.
Anyway, why was I writing again?…Oh yeah! Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Think of me on Christmas Day lying on a beach in Mexico drinking Strawberry Daiquiris in a hammock.
Lots of Love,
Cath Ellis x
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