Christmas in Kauai

We've celebrated our birthdays, wedding anniversary, and Thanksgiving since coming to Kauai.  Now we will celebrate our first Christmas and New Year's away from our home and without our family.  Actually, we've had a lot of Christmas' alone since our sons moved away and married.  You may have heard the old addage, "A daughter is a daughter all of her life; a son is a son until he takes a wife."  Well, who am I to argue with the wisdom of the ages?  When they married I told our sons that we would not pull them stem from stern over the holidays and celebrating Christs' birth.  They were welcome to come home, of course, but they were equally welcome to spend Christmas day with their in-laws - just reserve New Year's for us. That seems to have made everyone happy.  Our in-laws think we're generous to always let them have the grandkids Christmas morning (and that gives ME another week to prepare and to take advantage of the after-Christmas sales!  Woo-hoo!)  We also have our own private fireworks show to bring in the New Year.

Truthfully, we're not big gift givers; we prefer to celebrate the reason for the season and our family getting together.  I figure the families are stressed enough getting things together for their own children, so why add getting gifts for siblings and sisters-in-law and brothers?  Instead, we play the game where everyone brings a single gift, we draw numbers, and then steal each others gifts.  Sometimes they're goofy gifts (like the glass skull and screaming monkeys) and sometimes they're really cool.  One son seems to always put a pocket knife in the game and the grandsons literally wrestle each other for it.  Silly boys!

This year, we will miss all of that, but it can't be helped.  So we will content ourselves with Christmas in Kauai.  The Kauaiians make a big deal out of it.  They have a lighted Christmas parade, the palm trees are wrapped in festive lights, the shopping mall is decorated...

We got a 4' LED-lighted artifical Christmas tree and some very small Hawaii-themed ornaments.

 The locals help tourists get with the season by escorting cruise ships out of Nawiliwili Harbor.

Christmas was okay.  John and I sang in the Lihue Baptist Christmas Cantata.  We went caroling around the island with the church.  All of our kids called to wish us a merry Christmas and sent videos of the grandkids.  It was okay.  But we still missed being able to feast our eyes on our families.