Santa’s Run Off to the Caribbean!

To Hamptons Resident Jimmy Buffett:

Thank you for recording Christmas Island, my all-time favorite Christmas album. As a staunch holdout on all things seasonal, I don’t listen to Christmas music until Santa crosses Herald Square on Thanksgiving Day. And this year, as in many years past, “Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rhum” was my premiere choice.

To All Who Have Yet to Experience the Album:

Christmas Island is catchy, fun and contains lyrics that anyone who has ever dug their home/car/dog out of a pile of snow can relate to. Who doesn’t want to run off to the Caribbean as the Hamptons settles into the winter doldrums? (Even with this year’s current lack of the white stuff.) Apparently the yoga instructor I’ve been going to at Lululemon has done just that: “Thank you Coach Jimmy Minardi for bringing us Surfer Yoga all summer and fall! We will miss you this winter! Safe travels!” they posted on their Facebook page. (I’m just guessing that he’s headed South…seems like a very surfer thing to do.)

Only, it’s funny, because a good friend of mine will actually spend Christmas working in the Caribbean for the second year in a row. She’s a stewardess on a yacht that’s based down there, but I saw her two weeks ago for a long-needed Wake Forest Cross Country alumni reunion weekend. As all five of us gabbed over dinner and plotted our training schedule for the 2013 Boston Marathon—yes, I’ve officially committed myself—I started thinking about…Jimmy Buffett. More specifically, the song “Merry Christmas, Alabama.”

While not as catchy as “Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rhum”—really, how can you beat a song with a name like that?—it succinctly captures the spirit of Christmas. In Jimmy Buffett’s signature island vibe. And this holiday season, I’m giving thanks for my friends and family, near and far. To all the great memories, and many more to come.

The Hamptons is a transient community with a rural-but-distinctly-metropolitan vibe. So I think we can all relate to Jimmy Buffett’s lyrics. Happy holidays to all!

“Merry Christmas, Alabama”

Merry Christmas, Alabama/Merry Christmas, Tennessee/Merry Christmas, Louisiana/To St. Barths and the Florida Keys

Merry Christmas, Mississippi/Where I started this wild and crazy run/Such a long way from that first birthday/Merry Christmas, everyone

And Merry Christmas, Colorado/Though far from you all I have roamed/’tis the season to remember/All the faces, /And the places that were home

‘tis the season to remember/And to count up all the ports of call I’ve known/And to thank his mercies tender/For I’m never far from home

Merry Christmas to my saints and guardian angels/Who protect me as I roam/’tis the season to remember/All the faces/And the places that were home

Guess my life’s moved at near light speed/Since I started this wild and crazy run/Such a long way from that first birthday/Merry Christmas, everyone

‘tis the season to remember/No we’re never far from home/Merry Christmas, everyone.

***

And To All Who Think the World Is Going to End on Friday:

December 21 also marks the start of the winter solstice, which means that the days start getting progressively longer.

Is it too early to say, “happy almost-summer?”

If anyone wants to wait out the winter in the Caribbean, let me know…