There is an annual boat decorating contest at Oyster Cove Marina. Mary Buckman always takes first prize, but some of the rest of us still participate - where there are lights, there is hope. Last year, Mary decorated her boat with port and starboard teddy bears - green teddys on the starboard side, red to port. I have no idea where she found all those red and green bears, but combined with red and green lights, balls and garland, Shantung looked stunning.

My Captain Sweetie loves to see how high he can run our electrical bill in the month of December and goes overboard with the whole decorated boat concept. He has always had a weak spot for those gimmick string lights, and as I write this, there are rubber ducky lights hanging from the flying bridge of my boat, not to mention the Motion Detection Singing Santas on the bow. Our neighbors love to wave their hands in front of the Santas and, God forbid that I should forget to turn them off before I go to bed. "Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas! Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way" is their annoying chant. Once is cute, 30 times is annoying.

Every day, as Christmas draws closer, Sweetie comes home with yet another string of silly lights; yesterday it was a string of flip-flop lights. And, it only gets worse as the holiday end-of-season sales begin. I only hope he stops with the lights; last week he had his eye on an inflatable Tropical Santa, complete with an eight-foot palm tree.

Our neighbor, Cabo Bob, is a sucker for toys, so naturally, Christmas is just his cup of tea. He bought a remote-controlled miniature tug boat (above) at the Newport Boat Show and was having a ball maneuvering it around the fairways of the marina. Somewhere, Bob found a tiny string of electric lights that ran on a battery. The lights looked adorable on the tug, and when he added the snowflake garland, Sweetie knew he was looking at a humble 3rd place in the deorated boat contest. Cabo Bob and Sweetie have a friendly competition for second place each year. Unfortunately, just after I took the photo, the tug hit the dock and sank to the bottom before the judging took place. Cabo Bob blames the Great Christmas Tug Disaster on the additional weight of the battery, but who knows? Was there foul play involved? Did Sweetie get his hands on the controls? How far will a man go to win second place?