Many years ago when I was in the prime of my wanderlust years, I worked on cruise ships. It was a great way to see the world, meet new people, and learn new customs. New Year’s Eve is celebrated around the world. The new year signifies new hope, a chance for a new beginning, and an opportunity to say goodbye to the mistakes we made in the previous year and start anew with 12 as yet untainted months of possibilities.

One of my favorite New Year’s traditions I learned from my colleagues on board the ss Stellar Solaris, a Greek liner that sailed the Caribbean, South America, and the Amazon river from November through April. New Year’s Eve found us steaming south towards the equator and most of the crew were far from home and family. We got to reminiscing about holidays and traditions. As midnight approached, one of the Danish girls onboard got up on her chair and motioned for all of us to do the same. “In Denmark,” she explained, “it is a tradition to jump from the tallest piece of furniture in your home at the stroke of midnight.” It signifies leaving the worries from the previous year behind you,” she told us,  “and leaping into the new year with hope for better things to come.”

So, as the clock began to chime at midnight that year, and every year hence, I and, now my husband too, jump from the tallest piece of furniture near us with hope for a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year. It may sound crazy to you, but to us it is a joyful leap of faith.

You can learn about other fun, funky, and far out New Year traditions by reading Travel and Leisure Magazine’s December 2020 enewsletter article, entitled, “World’s Strangest New Year Traditions.”

And here is a New Year gift to you from the High Pointe Inn:  Stay 3 nights mid-week (Sunday-Thursday)  and save 25% on all 3 nights! Enjoy beautiful ocean views, warm & toasty fireplace rooms, full breakfast cooked-to-order each morning, plus afternoon coffee/tea and cookies. This offer is v alid Jan. 3 through March 31, 2020, Sunday through Thursday ONLY. [Blackout dates: February 12 - 20, 2020.] Call now for best availability.

Happy New Year Everyone!

When I was a kid growing up in New England, New Year’s Eve was a very special family holiday. My parent’s best friends would come for dinner, which was typically fondue. All the rage in the ‘60s, we would start with meat fondue. My mother would prepare small bites of raw beef, chicken, and pork that each person would cook in the fondue pot using a long, slender fork. Once the meat was cooked, an array of unique condiments was passed to adorn the tender morsels. Following this would be a cheese fondue. Like molten lava, the cheese would be kept warm in the fondue pot, and small bits of bread, fruit, and potato would be dipped into it, according to each individual’s preference. (more…)

I have often wondered how to describe the magic that is Cape Cod to our guests. Some say it is something about the light that surrounds this beautiful peninsular. Others will comment on the vast expanse of marsh and dunes that envelope Cape Cod Bay and Nantucket Sound. Still others will marvel at the brilliant blue of the sky, the smell of salt air, or the hypnotic effect of watching waves roll into shore. It is all that…and more. But until recently, there was no way to fully capture what makes Cape Cod such a special place, a place to be treasured.

Enter Charlie Gibson, anchor of ABC network news, and part-time resident of Cape Cod, where he has a family vacation home. Mary Richardson of Chronicle HD, a local TV news magazine, interviewed Charlie this week, his final week of broadcasts as anchorman for World News Tonight. “Why do you go to Cape Cod?” she asked him. And in his most eloquent style, Charlie Gibson captured what it is about Cape Cod that makes it such an unforgettable place, a place to return to again and again, and a place, if you’re lucky, to live and work. This is how Charlie Gibson described the feeling of Cape Cod:

“You drive across the Cape Cod canal and the air smells different, the atmosphere is different, the whole ethos of living is different, the pace slows down. It’s just like the weight of the whole world comes off your shoulders. And I love the fact that we have only a blinking light on the main street, and there’s a little deli that sells bread, and a hardware store, and a bike shop, and that’s it.”

“And then you sit and look out at the beautiful waters that surround the Cape and it slows everything down to the point that it’s not racing past you. And that is to be treasured always. It is…it is the happy place in the world.”

You can listen to the full interview with Charlie at the Boston Channel.com.

On this rare and unusually snowy morning on Cape Cod, my husband and I had breakfast together. What’s so extraordinary about that, you might ask? Well, we own a bed and breakfast inn on Cape Cod, and most Sunday mornings we prepare breakfast for our guests. This Sunday before Christmas, however, we are experiencing a classic Nor’easter. The wind is howling, the snow is drifting, and we cannot see out the windows because they are covered in snow. The weather forecasters prepared us well for this event, giving us 2-3 days warning of what was to come. Anyone contemplating a trip to Cape Cod this weekend probably deferred that trip for another day, opting to stay home where hopefully they are safe and warm. So we find ourselves sans guests for the first Sunday morning in many, many months. Hence, it gave us an opportunity to prepare breakfast for each other and to sit down and enjoy it together in front of the fireplace. It was like being a guest in our own home, only better.

We serve a full menu of breakfast items for our guests to choose from each morning, which is a bit out of the ordinary for most inns. Most inn guests will be served a plated breakfast of the innkeeper’s choosing. We believe that breakfast, being the most important meal of the day and one that is often a rare occurrence in this hectic world, should be special for all of our guests, and since everyone has different likes and dislikes, we offer a choice of at least six entrées every morning, plus a chef’s special.

So this morning we chose ebelskiver. A holiday treat in their native Denmark, ebelskiver are light, puffy pancakes that can be filled with fruit, jam, cheese, chocolate or pastry cream. You need a special ebelskiver pan to cook them in, but they are a delight whether served for breakfast, as an hors d’oeuvre, light supper or dessert. My husband served them with warm, maple-glazed sausages and real Grade A, dark amber, maple syrup. Yum!

It was a wonderful way to start the day, and a pleasant reminder of how important the other “B” in B & B is.

I have often wondered how to describe the magic that is Cape Cod to our guests. Some say it is something about the light that surrounds this beautiful peninsular. Others will comment on the vast expanse of marsh and dunes that envelope Cape Cod Bay and Nantucket Sound. Still others will marvel at the brilliant blue of the sky, the smell of salt air, or the hypnotic effect of watching waves roll into shore. It is all that…and more. But until recently, there was no way to fully capture what makes Cape Cod such a special place, a place to be treasured.

Enter Charlie Gibson, anchor of ABC network news, and part-time resident of Cape Cod, where he has a family vacation home. Mary Richardson of Chronicle HD, a local TV news magazine, interviewed Charlie this week, his final week of broadcasts as anchorman for World News Tonight. “Why do you go to Cape Cod?” she asked him. And in his most eloquent style, Charlie Gibson captured what it is about Cape Cod that makes it such an unforgettable place, a place to return to again and again, and a place, if you’re lucky, to live and work. This is how Charlie Gibson described the feeling of Cape Cod:

“You drive across the Cape Cod canal and the air smells different, the atmosphere is different, the whole ethos of living is different, the pace slows down. It’s just like the weight of the whole world comes off your shoulders. And I love the fact that we have only a blinking light on the main street, and there’s a little deli that sells bread, and a hardware store, and a bike shop, and that’s it.”

“And then you sit and look out at the beautiful waters that surround the Cape and it slows everything down to the point that it’s not racing past you. And that is to be treasured always. It is…it is the happy place in the world.”

You can listen to the full interview with Charlie at the Boston Channel.com.