As I said in an earlier post, I didn’t get to spend Christmas at home with my family in Hawai’i. Every year we celebrate with a huge family and friends Christmas Eve party—a tradition we’ve been holding at my home in Hawai’i for longer than I’ve been alive.

In Hawai’i the Hawaiian language is emphasized pretty heavily. If you’re in the public school system, a Hawaiian language teacher (also known as a Kupuna) teaches the language until sixth grade.

If you are in Hawai’i for Christmas, you’ll hear Mele Kalikimaka (meh lay kah lee kee ma kah) which means Merry Christmas in Hawaiian. Since it never gets cold in Hawai’i (to you mainlanders, at least) we celebrate by surfing and enjoying the sun as if that were our Christmas present. The Christmas songs are different (along with the traditional) but we have many Hawaiian bands that sing traditional music with a Hawaiian spin. Like the twleve days of Christmas. I’ve heard the mainland parody of this and I have to say, it’s not as good!

For a sample of the twelve HAWAIIAN days of Christmas here is the first line (tutu means grandma in Hawaiian)

On da first day of Christmas my tutu gave to me, one minah bird in one papaya tree…) then it goes on the numbah two day of Christmas… and so on and so forth with our local spin.

I missed home a lot this year, especially the nice weather and my dog. But there is always next year and I can’t complain since I had a pretty good mainland Chirstmas too.