“It's the most wonderful time of the year. There'll be much mistletoeing and hearts will be glowing, when loved ones are near. It's the most wonderful time of the year.”

December 26, 2019

 

Mike, Lisa and Bonnie

Joe and Howard

Gae, Kathy and Darci

DJ

“It's the most wonderful time of the year.

There'll be much mistletoeing

and hearts will be glowing,

when loved ones are near.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.”

Christmastime in Key West is a ton of fun and as the actual date of the 25^th approaches it just gets more and more fun and intense. To add to the fun is that Kathy’s birthday falls right in the middle of all the holiday celebrations on December 20^th. For many years, we hosted either a Christmas Eve party at our home, a birthday party for Kathy and in recent years, a party as a stop on our friends Nan and Mark’s annual holiday bike ride to check out the Christmas lights. This year, we did none of those things, opting for a more low key approach.

 

Howard

Craig and Cheryl

It did not stop us from joining friends to celebrate the season. Our friends Cheryl and Craig invited us to their Christmas party and while we had tickets to see “The Play that Goes Wrong”, a Broadway touring show that stopped in Key West for two nights, we still were able to join their celebration early.

Howard and Cyndi

Kathy and Criag

Craig is the former Mayor of Key West and just this week was appointed by the Governor of Florida to become a Monroe County Commissioner so they had a little extra to celebrate. The party was a fun one, with a ton of Key West characters on hand in addition to their wonderful family and friends. Local musician Howard Livingston was on hand to play Christmas carols and local singing police officer Joe Tripp performed as well. It was a really nice evening.

Caitlin and Jack

Lisa and Kathy

Though we did not host a massive party for Kathy’s birthday, she did invite a few close friends over for happy hour on her birthday to toast the occasion. While it wasn’t the full on party that we are used to, it was really nice to get to spend quality time with a smaller group of people when you could actually get into a little deeper conversation and interaction than our large celebrations of the past provided.

Greta and Tom

Nan and Mark

Kevin and Darci 

Caitlin and Effie

It was nice to take advantage of the new landscaping and wonderful holiday lights that Kathy worked so hard on this year. As usual, we were on the annual route of all the holiday light viewings of the Conch trains and trolleys. We are also a popular stop on the ever-increasing number of bike tours that come around to check out the holiday lights and in fact one arrived right during Kathy’s birthday happy hour that had a number of our friends participating in it.

Virginia

The seemingly constant evening visits by the multitude of trolleys and trains are often punctuated with shouts from friends calling us to come out and say hello, we even get texts and calls from people as they ride by on their holiday tours. It adds to a fun and festive holiday season.

Kathy and Carla

DJ and George

The same night as Kathy’s birthday happy hour, our neighbors and friends George and Carla hosted their annual wonderful holiday party. I must say how nice it is to just be able to walk a few houses down to attend what is always an awesome party and once again this year, did not disappoint, We have known these guys for many, many years and their party is always full of many of our oldest and dearest Key West friends.

 

Kathy and Steve

One of the awesome things about such long term friendships has been watching our friends children grow up from tiny tykes into adulthood and this is the case with their son George Robert, wo was home for the holidays from his service in the Merchant Marine, he and his friends have grown up into such fine young adults and seeing this always makes my heart warmer.