A Very Cape-y Christmas

We've been looking forward to our annual Cape holiday celebration all year.  When the weather outside was frightful, and it seemed as though we'd never get a break from the winter blues, Mike and I find ourselves anxiously longing for our yearly trip to the Cape, and the festivities that follow.  So whenever Cape Christmas is finally upon us, the three of us (yes, Winston is always included!) can barely contain our excitement as it always promises to be one of our favorite weekends of the year.

We were smarter this year, and decided to extend the Cape Christmas celebration to one extra evening - rather than a 3 day stay, we added another evening of festivities to the itinerary.  As always, each night had it's designated themes and corresponding wardrobe assignments.  We rallied the same crew as last year, with our cars packed full of costumes, hats, decorations and beach accessories to meet up at the Keohane family's beautiful beachfront property in Old Silver Beach to commence the 3rd annual Cape Christmas weekend.

While we maintained some of our yearly traditions from the previous two years, we started a few more traditions this year.  Rather than outlining each of the day's activities, I thought it would be more fun to share with you some of the new rituals we started as part of the 2013 weekend, and finish up with some recaps of the older traditions that we've maintained over three years now.

Hats have always been an integral part of Cape Christmas weekend celebrations as you can see from our past posts.  So this year was not much different - however; this year, we kicked off the weekend on our first night with a crazy hat game of poker.  Yes, that means that once we were all joined together from our perspective drives from the city, we made a few cocktails, poured a few glasses of wine & donned the most ridiculous headgear you could find.

Beach activities have also always been a large part of our weekend entertainment, and fitness (if you can call it that), but we added a little twist to your normal beach ProKadima this year.  We still had our competitive, cut-throat paddle ball sessions, but this year, we invented a more lazy solution that included beach chairs and large rakes (so that you didn't have to leave your chair should someone miss the ball...it's genius).  As you could imagine, this kept us entertained for the better part of 4 hours!

New to the costume themes this year was "Weekend and Bernie's tropical" that replaced last year's American night...which was perfectly timed for the Opening ceremonies at the 2012 Summer Olympics.  This crew can't just do "tropical night"....no, we had to put our own little twist on things, which resulted in aggressively festive 80's themed tropical attire.  The guys ended up looking almost identical to each other & while it was somewhat more difficult to the ladies, Weekend and Bernie's tropical night proved to be an excellent addition to the weekend themes.  This night also provided us all with the most spectacular sunset I had ever seen in my days at Cape Christmas, which was the perfect backdrop to our nightly friend photo shoot.

This year, we also agreed that we'd go all out with decorations.  Before we headed out to the Cape, we had a shipment from Amazon sent to the house so that it could be there in time for the weekend (gotta love Amazon Prime).  So new to the weekend was our brand new hot pink, pre-lit Christmas tree trimmed with ornaments of tropical fish, palm trees & parrots.  And what Cape Christmas isn't complete without tiki-shaped hanging lights?

But what makes the weekend so special are the traditions that we've kept up year after year.  Just like we had done quite a few times in the past, we continued the tradition of taking the ferry out to Martha's Vineyard on our "rainy-weather day" because there is no better place in the world to enjoy a dark & stormy, when the weather is....you guessed it....dark and stormy!  This year the five of us had lunch in Edgartown and huddled under umbrellas with our hoods pulled up in an effort to keep ourselves and our lobster rolls safe from the rain.

We continued quite a few of our other Cape Christmas traditions as well.  We made our yearly visit to Wood's Hole where we had steamers & bloody Mary's at the Landfall.  We continued the tradition of the themed "nautical night" where we dress ourselves in anything we can find with an anchor, sailboat or a nautical knot on it & had a friends dinner at one of our favorite North Falmouth landmark, the Silver Lounge.  We snacked on a smorgasbord of quahog clams, clam chowder, lobster mac n' cheese and rum cocktails while taking in the novelty decorations of the restaurant which is decorated like the inside of an old, old wooden ship.   And just like the past few years, we all took a few dips into the ocean for a sunset swim.

But our favorite tradition that we've kept up, is the main event...the evening of Cape Christmas.  Each year, the costumes get a bit more elaborate & the playlist gets a bit longer.  We spend the evening cooking together, boiling lobster, singing tropical Christmas carols, toasting to our friendship, dancing around the kitchen island, recording silly videos, and sitting on the back patio wishing Merry Christmas to the neighbors. Yes, it's a made up holiday, but every year, Cape Christmas reminds us how happy we are to have these friends in our lives.  Friends who aren't afraid to look ridiculous - but embrace it.

Whether we start new traditions or continue the same ones, the reason for the weekend remains consistent every year.  It's a weekend of care-free, serotonin-filled summer days.  It's four full days of happiness in the purest form, a kind of happiness that can only come from having life-long friends.  It's a vacation from the real world and an opportunity to not take ourselves so seriously.  And it's a trip where we make memories that we'll be re-living with each other forever.

And one last thing that's consistent every year....it is never easy to leave.  The five of us all suffered from a little bit of PCD (post-Cape-depression).  Even Winston was devastated to make the trip back to the concrete jungle.  But we do find comfort in knowing that we'll do it all again next summer - and we've all started brainstorming themes for costumes.  Thank you to the Keohan's who graciously hosted us and tolerated our shenanigans and thank you to our friends who are are as committed as we are to continuing the tradition every summer. Merry Cape Christmas to you all and here is to Cape Christmas 2014!!!