PortSide Operation Christmas Cheer

In 2022, PortSide revived our beloved tradition of Operation Christmas Cheer thanks to Stasinos Marine’s donating the services of a tug. This was also the retirement send-off for the tug captain Domenic Rizzo. We were out there from 9 to 5 and reached 46 vessels in Red Hook, Gowanus Bay, the Upper Bay anchorage, Newark Bay, both sides of the Kill Van Kull, and Bayonne.

In 2023, 2024, and 2025, the 2023 Operation Christmas Cheer tug is donated by DonJon Marine! The cookies are being donated by Bogopa Corporation (aka Food Bazaar), and all the newspapers are donated too! We are now reaching 50 vessels including Donjon’s way up in Newark Bay.

During Operation Christmas Cheer, PortSide delivers appreciation to tug and barge crew in NY harbor. We started this in 2004 and stopped it several years late once our ED had to sell the small powerboat we used for this.

We show up in a boat wearing silly Christmas hats, make a ruckus (“Ahoy, we have cookies… never fear Nemodeer is here”), and hand over a tin of cookies and newspapers and a Christmas letter. We ask them what they’re cooking for dinner and joke around. The simple gesture of being remembered on Christmas means a lot to the crew. Tugs and barges work 24/7 and often work long hitches (two weeks on, two weeks off is typical). They feel the burden of working in obscurity, bringing you the stuff you use, and frequently work national holidays and keenly miss their families on those days. They are essential workers who are too often overlooked.

Our crew of elves, usually people ashore who live too far from their families to join them at Christmas or are without family, really enjoy participating in this program that so fulfills the spirt of Christmas giving. Both sides of the giving and receiving feel the Christmas Cheer!

Media coverage

• Brooklyn Paper about 2022

• Brooklyn Eagle 2008

• Gowanus Lounge 2007

• New York Times 2005

Early years of Operation Christmas Cheer below