Celebrating the Holidays - Fiji Style!

We celebrated Christmas out at Musket Cove on the island of Malolo Lai Lai - along with the rest of the Yachties. 

Christmas morning at Musket Cove

As you can see, it was a beautiful sunny day. Not quite what you would expect on Christmas Day!

Moondance decorated

So, we threw a big potluck at the Island Bar. With the help of Va and Josie, of course.

Potluck getting started

Lots of people joined in.

A big crowd that spanned 11 countries - at least!

Beautiful girls

We had turkey (which is hard to find in this part of the world) and lots of holiday favorites.

Fiji Christmas Tree

The best (in our opinion) the lasagna with bechamel sauce and the homemade Panettone bread which took 3 days of baking on a boat.

Pretty amazing.  

Homemade Panettone - yum

A great time was had by all.

Another one!

So happy to spend Christmas at the island, just wish we could have stayed longer.

But, the weather was changing so all of the Yachties headed back to the mainland.

Cyclone Ula was stirring up trouble... So off to Port Denarau we went.

Christmas evening at Musket Cove

We had a great time ringing in the New Year with our friends on Interlude!

New Year's Eve sunset

Dinner on Moondance followed by toasts at midnight at Cardo's - watching the fireworks and all of the crazy people. 

Even made it to 2am - wow!

Celebrating New Year's with friends on s/v Interlude

So, a lovely holiday season. Not the same as in the States, but we enjoyed ourselves.

Next year, we are planning Christmas in Texas with the family. Looking forward to it!

Hope y'all had a great holiday season and the New Year brings you good health and loads of happiness!

PS:  Last year, we missed watching our holiday movies, so this year we made up for it.

Below is a list of our Christmas Movie Extravaganza and it is a doozy!

Our personal favorites:

• The Ref (R rated and so funny)
• Donavan's Reef (love John Wayne and Lee Marvin)
• The Bishop's Wife (Cary Grant and Loretta Young - perfect)
• Home Alone I and II (of course)
• Christmas Vacation (everyone's favorite family)
• A Christmas Story (you'll shoot your eye out!)
• Die Hard I and II (gotta have some action in your Christmas)
• Lethal Weapon I (more action)

The Classics:

•  It's a Wonderful Life (always makes us cry!)
• Christmas in Connecticut (Barbara Stanwyck is so funny)
• Miracle on 34th Street (the original of course)
• Holiday Inn (Bing and Fred lots of singing and dancing)
• White Christmas (Bing and Danny)
• A Christmas Carol (Alastair Sim plays a great Scrooge)
• Scrooged (Bill Murray's version)
• The Santa Clause I and II (Tim Allen makes a great Santa)
• Elf (Will Ferrell makes a big, but cute, Elf)

And the animated (with lots of singing!):

• Frosty the Snowman I and II
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (love listening to Boris)
• Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol
• A Charlie Brown Christmas (good grief)
• It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown
• Santa Claus is Comin' to Town
• A Pink Christmas (with the Pink Panther of course)
• Shrek the Halls (we liked this one)

As you can see we missed a few, but not many.  Doug was very patient!