"SRI LANKS" - DEC. 25

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

We woke up early to find stockings sitting on the chairs outside of our rooms! SANTA FOUND US! YIPPEE!!!!! He really does know how to find every child (haha) around the globe and he REALLY does know what each child (baha) likes!!!! Phil got a Spiderman pencil case in his stocking and I got an elephant pen! For all of you who don't believe in this jolly old fellow - think AGAIN!

Sadly, the best part of our morning AND early afternoon was the brief one I just described. It went down hill from there. And I wish I was kidding.



Early morning whale watching was another reason for the early rise. We put our Santa hats on and headed out to the harbour where a crew was waiting to take us out on a magical adventure (or so we thought). We were excited and eager, as the company bragged about its 90% success rates! One lady on board said she met a person who saw 4 blue whales the morning before! JACKPOT! This is going to be the best Christmas morning EVER!



Notta. I am going to give you the short version, so as not to re-live the really horrible "first Christmas away from home". We were out for 7 hours. The only whales we saw were on Emily's underpants. The two little girls behind us were puking. Emily was sleeping on her lap to avoid any nervousness the little boat created. Phil was over the side of the boat, in the ready position for Christmas vomit. The woman in front of us was being sick off the front of the boat. And all we got was a dry jam sandwich. For $60 a person, your family could have been there too. Aren't you sad you missed it?

At one point I was actually crying. It was the part when they said "2.5 hours to shore". WHAT?!!!! We had been out there forever, half of the guests were sick, and everyone else was starving! It was clear that the whales were either opening their presents or didn't celebrate Christmas at all. Either way, we'd had enough and wanted to get the hek out of that boat!

Okay - so maybe we saw a couple dolphins and a turtle on the way back to the harbour. But, as C-TOTES says, "that wasn't the porpoise!". She was right. We disembarked the boat, disappointed, grouchy, and plain old sad.

Back at the beach, we were able to cheer up a little as we ordered lunch and exchanged gifts. Phil and I got a really nice table runner from Miss Colleen, as well as a donation to Team Diabetes (THANK YOU COLLEEN)!!!! Emily also spoiled us with all sorts of things from her travels and each one was coupled with MONEY for TEAM DIABETES (THANK YOU EMILY)!!!!! The four of us were also happy to give our gift to Lal, which consisted of $100 for his daughter's education (she wants to be a doctor!). He was quite happy and our smiles came back as the spirit of giving shone through.



The rest of Christmas day was spent playing at the beach (where I injured Phil's toe) and building our gingerbread house in the restaurant! You really had to be a skilled arts and crafts person to participate in the building of the house. We were working with materials that were foreign to gingerbread houses and had to borrow equipment from the restaurant kitchen to get the job done. I think it turned out beautifully, even if we did have to force the waiters to compliment us. The hotel manager seemed quite pleased to receive the final product as a gift!



After playing Martha Stewart, we emailed home and the brave ones (ah-hem - NOT ME) called home on Skype. I knew I would cry, so I avoided the situation all together with a quick facebook message to all.



At dinner we continued to spread the love by sharing our ice cream leftovers with the stray dogs, then it was off to bed. 90% of people would have stayed awake to enjoy the ocean breeze. But, as proven that morning, we were part of the other 10%. So off to sleep it was!

P.S. The whale story STILL isn't THAT funny. Maybe by next Christmas we will derive some sort of humour from it?