Christmas Weekend

I was extremely lucky this past weekend, in that I was allowed to go back to McMurdo for Christmas for 4 nights, although it felt like about 4 hours because it went so fast. On the way back to Ross Island on Friday, the pilot decided to fly the C130 past town, to the ice edge to go whale watching. We didn't see any, but a couple laps around the open water and a low altitude buzz to the station were amazing! I ran outside when I got there because I could, but it was so windy and only about 10F out that I was quite miserable when I returned. But, I watched my friends play in a Christmas show where they changed all the lyrics from carols to paradies on living in Antarctica that evening. Very clever and I'm glad I got to town in time for it.
Saturday I hassled people at work for awhile, beat Super Mario Brothers during the All-Hands Meeting (a much better substitute) then headed to the Christmas party. It felt so cold outside that it might have detered folks away, but there were plenty of gals still able to make it with dresses and bare legs. My favorite thing about the Christmas party (from both years) is that there are so many people there that you can easily mill around and talk with someone new every 5 minutes. I kept waiting for Andrea to show up so we could take a picture with Santa, but she never made it because she was feeling sick.
Sunday was the meal. I rotated around again to make sure I could see everyone. Dinner at 3:00 with Andrea and a few people from her work, then off to a department's dinner/party across town for some post-dinner conversation, and back to the galley at 5:00pm for dessert with some friends. Christmas eve Carol sing at church with Andrea and Kevin, and a movie or two.
Monday was the highlight of my weekend when the volleyball tournament came about and I was finished with the Obhill Uphill. I actually won that race, but only 4 girls came out for it. A ten minute scramble to the top of our neighboring hill of scree. It was bitter cold and I couldn't hardly breathe into the wind. The shuttle drove us from the bottom of the hill back into town and everyone was hunkered down with a coughing fit. Pretty comical actually. The v-ball tournament was great. My team lost two close games and were out, but Andrea's team played all the way to a bitter end and lost a 17-19 match against a tough team. Some great volleyball was played even though I didn't get to go head to head with my sister. That ran nearly all day, so by the time it was over and the station manager asked some of us stragglers to come over for a celebratory drink, there was only time left to complain about sore muscles and get to bed.
Tuesday morning the weather was flirting with disaster, but the weather was nice enough to fly back to the Pole. I was completely flattered by the amount of people glad to see me back in McMurdo and I'm really going to miss all of them.