So, it came to pass in the 13th year of our Ford, also known as 2018, that the Dominguez family decided to cruise again.

To make it a little more of an adventure and save some myrhh, three unwise magi decide to board a train in Newark and head to Miami, planning to arrive at six the next evening. I cut my thumb unloading the bags at Penn Station, putting me in a foul humor as our journey begins.
The Christmas decorations adorn the cities as we roll down, and it’s cheery enough but the train stops repeatedly and
thirty-six hours later I’m not in any more of a holiday mood as we approach our penultimate stop six hours behind schedule. The conductor then says it is time for a mandatory monthly engine test that must be conducted before midnight and will delay us another 45 minutes.
We get off, call an Uber and check into a hotel near the cruise terminal.
I doze off as the TV news talks about Syria, the wall and a looming government shutdown.
I dream I’m in Civil War Spain, in a cold mountain village and the only people who come visit are there to take our food, young men as soldiers, or to arrest and execute someone suspected of opposing fascism. And I hear a voice callling “No, no, no. Alex…. Alex…. no, no, no.”
The voice sounds like my aging father, and I think that was his childhood, not mine.
I go back to sleep. I dream I am old and alone except for a cranky bird. And I hear
a voice callling “No, no, no. Alex…. Alex…. no, no, no.”

And I looked up and see…..

Is it Ebeneezer Cruise?

And then he says…

“Can you help me get my shirt on?”

Now, that I’ve been visited by the ghost of Christmas Cruise, I’ll change!