Christmas Cruise

Every year around mom's birthday we spend the day together, just the two of us. It is one of my favorite days of the year. It's a day to celebrate her birthday and also to transition into the holiday season. This year we started the day at Fidalgo's in Seattle. We hadn't been to their new store but we used to love the old place down by the stadium. The new store is a lot smaller but still very nice. From there we headed north to Molbak's in Woodinville. We really should've gotten an earlier start because we were a little rushed to see everything at Molbak's. We took a nice picture in front of the Poinsettia Tree too but unfortunately it's on mom's camera so I don't have it to post on the blog. After Molbak's I sprung the surprise on her- we were heading to Kirkland to board an Argosy Christmas Cruise!

Here we are in Kirkland. It was a sunny, beautiful day. Cold but not so cold that we needed our coats and very sunny.

Getting ready to board... we had tickets on the lead boat they call the "Christmas Ship". It's the big one on the left at the end of the dock up ahead.
It was crowded on board. Many people had obviously arrived very early and had selected all of the seats by the windows. We had some hot chocolate and found some seats in the center of the boat but soon realized it was more fun to wander around and go up on deck.
So we explored the ship and took pictures in front of the big tree on top. As the sun began to go down it got a bit colder; time to put coats and hats on.
The sun took its time setting. It was a very prolonged, beautiful sunset.
The small parade of boats made three stops along the way. On shore large groups of holiday revelers gathered around crackling bonfires awaiting the well lit-up ships and the choir singing on board.

As the choir beautifully heralded the holiday season the sky darkened and the colors of the sunset deepened.

Soon it was dark enough for the lights on the boats to be seen...

...but still the Heavenly sunset outshone them.

It really was a beautiful day and a very beautiful sunset.

I'm not sure which jolly fat man looked better by mom...

...me or Santa.

As night crept in and darkness overcame the gorgeous day we retired inside and found seats where we could enjoy the final performance of the choir.

Outside we could see the other well-lit ships passing in the night.

The Seattle Girls Choir Allegra sang songs of holiday cheer.

Rudolph came along in a speed boat and pulled up alongside the Christmas Ship. He delivered a package to Santa... could it be the pictures of each of the passengers that were taken as we boarded the ship?Finally our beautiful lake cruise had come to an end. We appreciated the other boats bedecked with lights and decorations as we made our way back down the dock.

One last view of the Christmas Ships as we drove away...

Famished, we headed to Bellevue for our dinner reservation at P.F. Chang's. Probably I should've left enough time for a quick lunch after Molbak's... oops! Our hunger might've influenced our opinion but either way we had one of the best dinners ever! The lettuce wraps were mom's favorite and I especially loved the crispy beans but everything was exceptional. And the blueberry jasmine iced tea...mmmmmmmm!

All in all it was a fabulous day. One that we will carry the memories of for years to come.

And we are already looking forward to mom's birthday next year!