Crew Focus: Christmas for Yacht Crew
Christmas for Yacht Crew: The Ones Making the Magic. With Courtesy of Erica Lay & The Mallorca Bulletin. #25/1130. Erica Lay is owner of EL CREW International Yacht Crew Agency http://www.elcrewco.com/ erica@elcrewco.com
For most people, Christmas means cosy jumpers, lazy days, and a kitchen full of food. For yacht crew, it means the complete opposite: long days, tight schedules, last-minute surprises, and serving a full Christmas dinner at anchor while sweating under a Santa hat that keeps blowing off in the wind.
And yet – somehow – crew still manage to pull off the most magical Christmases imaginable. Not for themselves, of course. For the guests. Always the guests.
When Christmas Looks Like Work (Because It Is)
Crew will tell you Christmas “is just another day”, but that’s a lie they tell themselves at 06:15 while steaming milk for eight gingerbread cappuccinos.
Christmas onboard is a production. Lights, decorations, themed cocktails, personalised stockings, elaborate menus, playlists for every mood… all pulled together while the yacht is moving, the weather is misbehaving, and the guests keep changing their minds.
Some stews start planning Christmas décor in October. Some chefs start planning menus before they’ve packed away the Halloween sweets. Provisioning becomes an extreme sport, especially in the Caribbean, where turkeys regularly vanish from the face of the earth the minute you actually need one.
Meanwhile, the deck crew are outside wrestling with garlands and fairy lights, pretending they’re having a great time while secretly praying no one asks them to build “a winter wonderland on the sundeck” again.
Missing Home, Making Do
Let’s be honest – Christmas can sting at sea.
You’re somewhere stunning, doing a job you’re proud of, but your family is thousands of miles away, sending selfies from the sofa. You’re surrounded by people, but it can feel strangely lonely.
Crew deal with it in different ways. Some call home between service runs. Some do Secret Santa with a strict “no buying, only scavenging from the boat” rule. Some pull little traditions from home – a movie, a song, a Christmas Eve hot chocolate in the crew mess – and it helps.
And then there are the ridiculous, heart-warming moments that only happen on yachts. The sous chef who bakes gingerbread at midnight because a homesick decky says “it smells like home”. The captain who orders gifts so the crew have something to unwrap. The engineer who reluctantly wears reindeer antlers because the stews think it’s funny. The spontaneous, slightly feral Christmas karaoke session in the galley that absolutely never happened. No evidence please. Or the engineer will unplug the wifi.
The 2 a.m. Crew Christmas Dinner
This is a universal yacht-crew phenomenon.
Guests go to bed full of roast turkey, champagne, and joy.
Stews go to the pantry to polish cutlery. Chefs are tackling the war zone of a galley. Deck crew stage their chamois fight against the glitter all over the aft deck and, finally, hours later… they sit down together to their own Christmas meal.
And it becomes one of those memories you look back on years later with a strange mix of exhaustion and warmth.
The Magic They Make (That No One Sees)
Guests see the tree, the lights, the gorgeous table settings, the food that looks too pretty to eat.
They don’t see the ten frantic minutes spent searching for a missing ornament.
They don’t see the stew crying with laughter because Santa tripped on the passerelle.
They don’t see the chef stress-prepping three menu versions because the guests “aren’t sure what they’ll feel like on the day”.
They don’t see the deckies hiding behind the mast trying to wrangle a tangled string of lights for the fourth time.
Crew turn Christmas into something extraordinary under conditions most people wouldn’t last an hour in. And they do it with good humour, surprising resilience, and enough caffeine to power a small city.
Why Crew Christmases Matter
It might not be the Christmas they grew up with.
It might not be restful.
It might not be peaceful.
But it is special.
It’s a shared experience. A weird, wonderful version of Christmas that only yacht crew really understand. And there’s something beautiful about knowing that you helped a family create memories they’ll carry for the rest of their lives.
So here’s to every stew hanging decorations in a rolling swell.
To every captain sweating in a Santa costume.
To every engineer fixing the oven five minutes before service.
To every chef performing culinary miracles at anchor.
And to every crew member spending Christmas far away from home so someone else can have the holiday of their dreams.
You’re the ones who make the magic.