(mel-lee kah-lee-kee-mah-kah)
(Phrase) Hawaiian for Merry Christmas.
Example
Aunty Lehua wishes you and yours Mele Kalikimaka this holiday season!
Note: ‘Ōlelo is a Hawaiian word meaning language, speech, word, etc. To see the current list of Hawaiian and Pidgin words, definitions, and usage please click on
I have a favorite Sunday joke that goes, “A mother left church to look for her son and found him sitting on the curb in the parking lot. ‘You need to come back inside,’ she said. ‘But Mom, nobody likes me. Nobody talks to me or wants to sit by me. It’s boring going to meeting after meeting. I’d rather be outside enjoying the sunshine. Isn’t that a better way to feel God’s love?’ ‘Son, there are two reasons you need to come back inside,’ she said. ‘The first is that you made a commitment to God. The second is that you’re the Bishop.’
I often feel like that bishop.
Of course, you can change bishop to pastor or priest or rabbi or even Relief Society President or PTA Chair. The reason I like this joke is because at its heart it’s really about reluctant leadership and obligation. Even the most stalwart on the outside can have internal doubts.
There are many people in my church who would find that sentiment horrifically unsettling, but I consider it marvelously humanizing. I feel like I can lend a hand to a human. I can also forgive humans for making mistakes.
My husband and I team teach Sunday School to fourteen year olds. Some days it’s like trying to raise the dead. They constantly beg for treats and want to take naps instead of participate in discussions. It’s a lot like helping in the nursery but without diapers or Goldfish crackers.
One Sunday when I was teaching alone I walked out on them, saying I refused to believe they were truly as stupid as they were pretending to be when they insisted Catholics crucified Christ.
You don’t even have to be Christian to know that’s impossible.
But calling their bluff and storming out was probably not one of my more Christ-like moments. I even told them that if they didn’t want to learn, I’d wheel in a tv and play a video each week while I sat in a corner reading a book. Surely that would bring more Sunday peace to my life than struggling with these knuckleheads.
After stomping around the hallway and grinding my teeth to hold in the inappropriate words that bubbled up to the surface, I realized what I needed to tell them.
God only had one perfect person to do his work in the entire history of the world—and even Jesus had days where he wept in frustration. If our faith rests in the infallibility of a single person or group—bishop, scout leader, parent, Sunday School class—we’re guaranteed to be disappointed, possibly angry, and sitting on the curb while the meeting is going on. Our fragile, tempest-tossed faith has to be more resilient.
Faith is something that grows not because of all the good we’ve experienced, but in spite of the bad. It is the fervent belief that no matter now big or insignificant our contribution seems, no matter how little progress we seem to be making, faith is knowing the journey defines the destination.
After nine months of cajoling, badgering, challenging, and insisting that kids think beyond easy answers like prayer and reading scriptures when we ask them about how they will tackle life’s curve balls, I realize that I’m going to miss them when a brand new class takes their place in a couple of weeks. More surprising is that they say they’re going to miss us, the mean teachers who insisted their weekly treat was having us as teachers.
Evidence of God’s power and grace, if you ask me.
When my son was eight years old, we made a deal that he would take piano lessons until he was sixteen or could play all the songs in a simplified hymnal, something I guessed would take three or four years at the most. By then I figured he’d love music and would want to continue to play.
Not so much.
I made the fatal rookie mom mistake of underestimating the power of the truly unmotivated. I once caught him practicing the piano while standing next to me in my office. He’d recorded himself practicing weeks ago and simply had the piano playback the tracks.
That was the first and only time I regretted buying a digital piano.
Now sixteen, a month ago he told me he was ready to quit. With a gun pointed at his head, I think he can manage a couple of hymns and a classical piece or two, but it’s obvious he’s not going to be tickling the ivories for pocket change at a piano bar or subbing for the church pianist anytime soon.
I was seriously bummed.
You see, I always wanted to learn to play the piano.
The closest I came was in fifth grade when a band teacher starting coming to our school twice a week. Only two kids from each 5th and 6th grade class could join the band. Since it met during regular school hours, teachers had to approve who could miss valuable class time. I begged my teacher Mrs. Goo to let me go. I said my parents insisted that I be in band. I promised to bang the erasers to rid them of chalk every day before lunch, that I would stay in from recess on band days to read and do extra math, and the kicker, I would never ever ask another question in class again. Eventually, a boy no one liked and I got chosen. I think Mrs. Goo was secretly relieved to be rid of us a couple of hours a week.
At the first band meeting the conductor said if we played the sax, clarinet, or oboe we had to buy reeds. If we played the trumpet or trombone we’d have to buy a mouthpiece. Drummers needed to provide their own drumsticks. I raised my hand.
“Is there an instrument that doesn’t cost anything to play?”
“The flute,” he laughed. “The school has a few you can use.”
Score! “I want to play the flute,” I said.
“Hell, no,” my father said.
“There’s no rental fee and band is during school so I don’t have to go early or stay late. I can still ride the city bus with Heidi.”
“Band? Like marching around on a field? What about uniforms? I’m not paying for that.”
“It’s free,” I said.
“Fine,” he said. “You want to look like an ass marching around in the rain, that’s up to you.”
To keep the peace I practiced before my parents came home from work and saved all my babysitting money for three years to buy my first flute, a crappy Artley that I was so proud of in eighth grade. I played all through high school, marching in the rain at football games and teaching at summer band camps. As a freshman, I earned a chair on a competition symphonic wind orchestra that traveled all over the United States performing at places like Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Rockefeller Center, the Rose Bowl, Disneyland, and the White House—all major multi-week adventures when you’re a bunch of teens traveling from Hawaii. Jazz, classical, baroque, pop, movie scores, ballads—I played them all, including ballroom waltzes and be-bop oldies for the Waikiki tea time crowd at a fancy hotel. By the time I was a high school senior, I could sight read and play just about anything a conductor threw at me.
But as a freshman in college, I psyched myself out and didn’t even audition. Since I wasn’t a music major I didn’t think there was a place for me to play. Life went on with less and less musical joy in it until I turned around and realized I hadn’t sung in a choir or played more than a token note on a flute in more than 25 years. It didn’t seem possible.
The lessons are already in the budget, I thought. But so what? I’m the boss of me now.
“Okay,” I told my son. “If you really don’t want to play, you don’t have to. But I’m talking to your teacher about taking your spot.”
“You can’t do that!” my thirteen year old daughter shrieked. “It’d be too embarrassing!”
“Oh, for me because I’m old?” I asked.
“No! For me because you’re old! Moms don’t take piano lessons! What about recitals? No way!”
Yes, way. With three lessons under my belt, I’m already tackling beginner’s Christmas music with simple three and four note chords that I fumble my way through. According to my teacher, it’s actually easier to teach an old dog new tricks, especially when the dog is used to pounding on a different kind of keyboard for hours on end and can already read music.
After all, somebody’s gonna have to play the piano when the kids are gone. Might as well be me.
I was piddling around in bed playing Candy Crush level 147 and losing for the fifteenth time that morning when the lights flickered, once, twice, and went out.
Holding my breath and staring at the light fixture, I waited.
Dang, I thought. Late last night I didn’t double-save my manuscript.
Beep, beep, beep nagged the UPS in my office like a toddler’s persistent Mom, Mom, Mommy, Mom. I know nothing’s foolproof. All the UPS really does is allow me twenty minutes to gracefully shut down the server and computers—assuming I’m even home. During an outage smart money always unplugs everything from the wall to protect delicate electronics from a power surge meltdown when the electricity comes back on.
Most days I choose lazy over smart. When I realized I’d have to move my desk, I just turned my computer off.
I can always write another novel. Hernias are forever.
With the UPS no longer beeping at me to do something, anything, quick, I considered my next move.
No writing on the manuscript, I thought, not even on my laptop since I can’t get to my most current files on the server. No social media stuff either unless it’s from my smart phone. Yuck. There’s a headlamp hanging on a peg in the mud room. I could—horrors!—clean the bathrooms. No laundry. No vacuuming. I could empty the dishwasher and wipe down counters.
Oh, joy. Without my favorite electronic gadgets to lean on, I’m like a housewife in the 1890s, but without a snazzy rug beater or ruffled apron.
Or maid. In the 1890s I’d have a maid, a nice homely hardworking lass who cost me 5 cents a day. I’d totally pop two bits a week for someone else to clean. There’s probably a month’s wages in the couch cushions. With Ella scrubbing her heart out, I could recline on the fainting couch all day and read trashy novels while snacking on chocolate bon-bons.
Wait. Do I even like bon-bons? Not the chocolate and fruit kind, that’s for sure. And when’s the last time I read a book on paper? There’s not a printed book in the house that I haven’t already read.
What if this power outage never ends? It’s November. We’ll freeze! No, we’ll just put more clothes on. It’s fine. Eskimos lived without central heating for thousands of years and they didn’t have ski coats or thermal underwear.
Dinner! Well, at least last night’s bread is still fresh. Peanut butter sandwiches. Blah. The kids will just have to deal with it. Hubby’s out of town. Typical. I wonder how the camp stove works. Last I saw it was piled under all the scout stuff in the basement. Propane canisters are green, right? Maybe I can build a fire.
I glanced through the window.
“Oh, #@^!$*!! The horses!”
Out loud it sounded worse. How am I going to water the horses? No power, no automatic watering pump, no heat. The water trough will freeze solid. That means we’re back to filling buckets and breaking ice like the pioneers. Horses need at least 5 gallons of fresh water a day. Six times five plus spillage—
Damn. That’s a lot of buckets. The kids will have to get up really early to get that done before school.
But if the pipes freeze, they can’t get water from the tap. Where’s my nearest water source?
The hot tub.
It’s insulated so it should stay above freezing for several days. The kids can dip buckets out and carry them down to the horses. Maybe it would it be better to bring the horses to the deck. Can horses climb stairs? Should we even give spa water to horses? It’s a salt system, not chlorine, but salt’s hard on kidneys. People lost at sea go crazy drinking ocean water. That settles it. The horses are crazy enough already. Hot tub water is for washing dishes and clothes.
Did Eskimos wash clothes? The wore furs, right? Do you even wash furs? Cats lick themselves clean.
I’m not licking anybody’s parka. Seriously. I’m not.
So no hot tub water for the horses. That leaves Deer Creek Reservoir. It’s what? Ten miles each way? Twenty miles on horseback will take most of the day. We’d have to start at dawn.
But really, when did anybody last add salt to the hot tub? Maybe it’s still an option.
I sighed. Too bad my daughter loves them. It would be easier to set them free. Worked for Willie.
Holy crap. Twenty miles each day. After I get snow pants and a jacket on, I’ll dig the ax out of the mess in the garage and use it to break ice and chop wood. The kids and I are going to need water, too. I better figure out a way to tie coolers to the horses. I think we’ve got bungee cords in the truck. Maybe take fishing poles—
Huh. Power’s back on. Guess I’ll shower and write a blog post.
Rounding out my five biggest myth-conceptions about Hawaii is #5:
Going to Hawaii is like stepping back to a simpler time.
Because vacationers dream of Hawaii as an idyllic backwater paradise, it knocks people’s socks off to learn that by the mid-1800s Hawaii had the highest literacy rate in the world, the first newspapers west of the Rockies, and that Iolani Palace, the home of Hawaii’s monarchs, had telephones and electricity before the White House in Washington, DC.
It was good to be the King.
The city of Honolulu, which melts seamlessly into the tourist mecca of Waikiki, is the 10th largest city in the United States. On the isle of Oahu, Hawaii’s largest population center, islanders spend on average more than two hours a day in stop and go traffic, ranking Honolulu the third worse commute in North America, just behind Los Angeles and Vancouver.
You can imagine the shock this causes honeymooners from Nebraska who are expecting grass huts nestled near waterfalls.
The good news is if your perfect Hawaiian vacation depends on grass huts and waterfalls, we do have a few of those around. For around $130 tour buses will pick you up from your Waikiki hotel and take you to an authentic reenactment village. Just don’t expect the locals posing for your photos as you try your hand at pounding poi, weaving lauhala mats, or hula to actually live there. Most are islanders, not Hawaiians, and your once-in-a-lifetime Kodak moment is probably their second job after a two hour commute.
But they’ll try their darndest to make it special. We get the power of vacations, too.
Hurricanes, active volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and traffic jams aside, we still think we’re lucky we live Hawaii.
Because we are.
Once at a fancy restaurant I watched the wait staff run the entire time I was sipping my guava juice and nibbling French toast. The maître d’ was orchestrating it all with a glance, a raised eyebrow, a slight head tilt, and the staff was hopping! I was so impressed with the service I was checking out their shoes, wondering if they had special soles that gave them superhuman ability to carry a loaded tray, pour coffee, and take orders simultaneously. While this amazing ballet was going on, at the table next to me a foursome was enthusiastically waxing on about how laid-back everyone in Hawaii was, how easy it must be to live here, no pressure, people practically live at the beach.
Huh? Did they not recognize that everyone baking in the sun at Waikiki was from Minnesota? It takes serious snow to get that shade of pale.
Chances are if tourists are at the beach, the locals are busy at work. Those guys you see by the beach pavilion? Life guards, tour guides, surf instructors, grounds maintenance…
Hawaii has the highest cost of living of any state in the union, but wages average somewhere in the bottom third. Consequently people often work two or more jobs to make rent. Multi-generational households are common because the cost of a modest three bedroom “starter” home begins around $700,000—and that usually doesn’t include the land. Most homes are lease-hold, meaning someone else owns the land and you just rent the right to build and maintain a house on it at your expense for the next 30 years.
Really.
Believe me, islanders know all about working hard and saving for a rainy day.
But because things are so expensive and space is at a premium, people don’t tend to care much about stuff. In Hawaii the relentless pursuit of things—signs of ambition and progress in the west—is less important than building relationships with people. Spending time talking with family and friends, doing things as a community, not stressing over things that aren’t important in the long run—that’s what I think visitors are really seeing and why they confuse laid back with lazy—as another umbrella drink magically appears.
Next: #5 Going to Hawaii is like stepping back into a simpler time.