Knitters Needed
If you like to knit, and would like to make a Christmas present for a  mariner on the high seas at Christmas join St. Peter’s Christmas-at-Sea Program!

We are creating Christmas- at- Sea gift packages for deep-sea and river mariners working far from home on Christmas Day this year. Each  package includes a hand knit vest, watch cap, scarf, and socks. They are distributed along with other personal items such as nail clippers, a comb, and a  notebook. It’s part of a tradition begun during the Spanish American War and  adopted during World War I by the Seamen’s Church Institute of New York and New  Jersey, which named it Christmas-at-Sea.

Last year, chaplains distributed more than 14,000 gifts during the holiday season to merchant mariners on American rivers and those traveling on the high seas. That brings the total number of hand knitted Christmas gifts to more than one million presents given  to people who work lonely and dangerous jobs.

“Crossing oceans,  especially stormy ones at Christmas, can be depressing,” says Captain Roger Haskell of the Motor Vessel Sea-Land Comet. “There is loneliness in 40-knot  winds and 35-foot seas that is difficult to express to those who have never experienced it. We received our packages of presents from Seamen’s Church  Institute in Elizabeth on November 13 and here we are more than half way across  the Pacific in route from Yokohama to Long Beach on Christmas. That’s 12 ports  and 19 time zones. The fact that there are people who will sit down and make  gifts like these for merchant mariners they’ve never met is truly moving. You have brightened our Christmas away from home. May God bless all of  you!”

If you would like to participate, contact Sally Johnston at
(845) 677-9903, or at sejohnston@optonline.net.