Mood:  special

welcome everyone from Facebook who is whiling away the hours on the day before Christmas!

today, after I get caught up with some work stuff, Len and I will go downtown for the red ticket drawing, which is a small town event for the folks who stay on island for the holidays.

It is pretty funny, and sweet, and surreal. For every 25$ you spend on island prior to Christmas; you get a red ticket. For us, our major purchases will have been at the vet for our dog Jake. Some people put off buying a car or paying for a trip to somewhere warm for this time in order to get a boatload of tickets. Our town crier (yes, we have one) and the winner of the Junior Miss pageant draws the winning tickets. You have to be there to win, so everyone on island who can shows up, rain or shine today at 3:00 pm. The prizes: 5 $1000.00 prizes and 1 $5000.00. Many generous people donate their tickest (especially if they are going to be off island) to on island non profits. I have no idea how those people keep track of what can be thousands of little ticket stubs. We have about 50 tickets. I'll post tomorrow or later today if we win. Here is a link to last years red ticket drawing: http://nantucket.plumtv.com/stories/it_only_takes_one

This weekend is the Christmas Bird count, and the Nantucket field station is one of the sponsors. Friday night a ton of birders come to the field station to organize as teams and head out early Saturday morning to count birds (species and total numbers) all over the island. We'll be on our way to Haverhill to visit with Len's family.

more later today!