Our dinner choice tonight was Southern fried chicken at the Pool Grill. The grill is behind the wall of lights, and the tables for eating are in front of that and on the adjoining end of the pool deck. We dined under the stars.

After dinner, Ted and I walked back to downtown Darwin (ten minutes) to view the Christmas light display in a city park. These towers of light are actually made out of plastic water bottles. The colors of each tower do the fade-and-change thing, so they look different every one or two minutes.

The park displays are similar to displays in the U.S.

This is how to decorate a palm tree. Not a problem in our yard.

As we left the park, this sign gave us an Australian warm fuzzy.

Even our ship looks Christmas-like when the lights are on at night.

When we returned to our stateroom, we saw that the people two rooms down from us brought holiday decorations with them for this cruise.

My emails keep offering me sales on cold weather clothes and last-minute holiday deals, but it just doesn’t “feel” like we should be shopping for Christmas and winter. Kari wrote that she made cutout cookies, and it doesn’t seem like the season for Christmas cookies. (It made me hungry for a cutout cookie, though.) It’s definitely an unusual experience to be away from home during the holiday season and especially to be where it’s so warm and sunny in December. Still, good times abound and the fun goes on.