Christmas in Savannah

Monday and Tuesday, December 24 and 25

My sister Christy had a special treat for us – her Christmas gift was a reservation at a Bed & Breakfast in the heart of the historic district. I’ve never stayed at a B&B before, so this was going to be extra special. We walked around the river front area a bit, and then got checked in to the Amethyst Inn, which was one of the grand old homes built in the 1880s. It was 3 stories tall, but looked bigger since all the ceilings were so high. Christy had reserved a suite for the 3 of us, and the suites were on the bottom floor with access to a large courtyard. I think lots of these old homes have pretty little courtyards hidden from public view! Rocky, our host, spent a lot of time going over maps and things to do – I expect he can answer anything about Savannah! The main areas of the house were decorated to the hilt with so many Christmas displays that it’s a wonder they can keep it all straight! We found out later that they take photos of everything so they can remember where things go from year-to-year! Toni had brought a small Christmas tree up, and she got that all decorated and we put the gifts under the tree.

Then it was time to get ready for our Christmas Eve riverboat tour. It started early so we could see everything we were passing before it got dark. We had a nice window table, and the boat was full. Savannah is a major port, and we saw lots of tugboats and other boats on the river – I think I read somewhere that over 2000 ships make their way into Savannah’s port every year. We passed an old fort, which I made a mental note of for a possible visit, and turned around just short of reaching the Atlantic Ocean. Dinner was a buffet, and really good with a mix of southern specialties like shrimp and grits, and salads, veggies, several kinds of meats, and a very fancy dessert table. There was a musician on board, and since it was a Christmas Eve tour, one would have thought he would play some Christmas music, but he played an odd mix of songs like the twist, and YMCA, and lots of happy birthdays. Hmmmm…

After our tour was over, we went to Kroger, where I had ordered a ham dinner with all the fixings, and we delivered that to the Park Place Outreach Home – a safe place for runaway, homeless, and in-crisis youth. The kitchen was big and clean and airy, and it was nice to hear they weren’t overloaded with kids at the moment. The numbers of kids change constantly, and was down from when I had first made contact with them, but there were still kids there. So that was my donation-of-the-day.

We went back to our B&B, and had a nice Christmasy evening with gifts (which we traditionally open on Christmas Eve) and talking to other family members.

Christmas Day

We started our day off with an amazing Christmas breakfast – a crab/egg souffle (made with crab they caught), praline French toast, sausage, lemon bread, cornbread and fresh fruit. The inn can accommodate about 20 people, and they weren’t quite full, although some people skipped breakfast to get to their particular church service. I had a little mishap this morning, and dropped one of my contacts right down the drain. I have to wear hard lenses, so it wasn’t just a matter of getting a new disposable lens out. I mentioned it to Rocky to see what the chances were of getting a plumber out the next morning, only to discover that he was a plumber and has done most of the renovations on the house himself. He found it in about 10 minutes – on Christmas morning no less!

My mom was flying back to Wisconsin today to avoid the crowds on the 26th, so she got packed up, and I ran her out to the airport after we took a last walk around one of the big parks. Toni and I then set off on another long 5-6 mile walk – down to the river to see what was going on down there, and while most of the shops and restaurants were closed, there were still a lot of people out and about, and lots of local people making flowers and ornaments out of palm fronds, and some street musicians were playing Christmas carols. We thought we found a place that would be open for an early dinner, and planned to come back a bit later. We walked through more parks and an old cemetery on the way back, and got a little turned around – lots of those parks start to look alike! In return for my rescued contact, I thought I would knit a Christmas dish cloth for the Inn to go with all their other Christmas stuff – I happened to have Christmas colored yarn and knitting needles, so I got started on that. A bit later, we wandered back down to the river, but the restaurant we thought would be open wasn’t. Someone just forgot to out away the Open sign. Our choices were pretty limited for a meal – there seemed to be only one restaurant open, and it was busy and we didn’t have reservations. Somehow we got in – probably because it was kind of early. Toni had the cheesy shrimp and grits, and I had crab cakes – a nice Christmas dinner! We headed back to enjoy some more time at the B&B, then we headed out for a movie – saw Parental Guidnace with Bette Midler and Billy Crystal. There were some very noisy kids in the audience, and they were eventually removed by the ushers. When we left, we were a little surprised to see big groups of noisy kids hanging around the theatre – no adults in sight!

We went back to the B&B and I stayed up late to finish knitting the Christmas dish cloth before breakfast.