It’s that time of year again, when your fellow passengers on the cruise ship keep you awake until the early hours of the morning singing Silent Night.

For Christmas is the season when by their fruitcakes shall ye know them.

Actually, I love Christmas and everything about it, especially seasonal verses such as these by Robert Louis Stevenson:

The sheets were frozen
hard, and they cut the
naked hand;
The decks were like a
slide, where a seaman
scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’-
wester. Blowing squally
off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting
beakers were the only
things a-lee…

…This day of our adversity
was blessed Christmas
morn,
And the house above
the coastguard’s was the
house where I was born…

Bah! Humbug!

Personally, I think we should celebrate Christmas every day of the year, at the very least by being extra nice to our neighbours and acquaintances instead of growling at them like Ebenezer Scrooge after some watery gruel has gone down the wrong way.

Wouldn’t it also be nice to take a cruise to the South African republic of Natal, which was discovered by Vasco da Gama on Christmas Day, 1497, and gets it name from the Portuguese word for Christmas.

Or sail to Christmas Island in the eastern Indian Ocean.

Or nip over to Fort Christmas in Florida.

Christmas stamps for Christmas cards

You could also buy commemorative stamps from each of those destinations and send them to your friends, in a Christmas card, with the message ‘Wish you were here on this Christmas cruise, Yo! Ho! Ho!’

Just don’t miss anybody out.

It’s said the greatest Christmas crisis begins when a family mixes up the lists of those who sent Christmas cards last year and those who didn’t.

Meanwhile, by the fake roaring log fire in your cabin, you could sip mulled wine and read aloud this extract from the Diary of the Reverend Henry Teonge (1621-1690), a naval chaplain who served aboard the good ships: Assistance, Bristol, and the Royal Oak:

’1675. Christmas Day we keepe thus: At four in the morning our trumpeteers all do flat their trumpets, and begin at our Captain’s cabin, and thence to all the officers’ and gentlemen’s cabins; playing a levite’ (trumpet call to arouse sailors in the morning) ‘at each cabin door, and bidding good morrow, wishing a merry Christmas…’

Bet they were delighted…

Merry Christmas, Carol

Maybe, if you’re starting to feel full of the joys of Christmas, you could join me at a more reasonable hour singing this version of a carol from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, derived from ‘The Three Kings of Cologne’:

I saw cruise ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,
I saw cruise ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day in the morning.

And up the Solent they did appear
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,
And up the Solent they did appear
On Christmas Day in the morning.

The ships were filled with wine and beer
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,
The ships were filled with wine and beer
On Christmas Day in the morning.

And all the islanders gave a cheer
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,
And all the islanders gave a cheer
On Christmas Day in the morning.

There was lots of love and songs to sing
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,
There was lots of love and songs to sing
On Christmas Day in the morning.

And all the bells in Cowes shall ring,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,
And all the bells in Cowes shall ring,
On Christmas Day in the morning.

James Leavey

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Posted in Humour