It’s that time again to wish everyone Happy Holidays and all Season’s Greetings.

I’ll say it in Hawaiian — “Mele Kalikimaka”, since I am currently home for the holidays visiting my 92 year old mother in her rural village, and my 27 year old son who lives on the same island. I have lots of other relatives here in Hawaii and may be seeing some of them as well.

May your holidays be filled with fun, family fellowship, and friendship.

Thanks to our Tucsoncitizen.com loyal readers who keep coming back to our website for “news, information, commentary, opinion & perspective”.

Looking forward to 2013 as a new year filled with hope, peace and love. Happy New Year next week, and keep spreading that “aloha spirit” into the new year. And if you’re unsure what exactly qualifies as “aloha spirit”, read one of my previous posts “Do you Practice Aloha?” (click here).

What does Christmas mean to you?

It’s supposed to be a special time for Christians (Catholic and Protestant) to celebrate and rejoice in the birth of Jesus Christ. But it can be so much more, in spreading the message of love, faith, & hope throughout your community and the world.

Last night at the Christmas Eve Mass at St. Augustine Cathedral, Bishop Gerald Kicanas preached that “we are all precious children of God”. He also said we need to “create a world of peace.”

Many non-Christians (like my birth family of Jodo-shu Buddhists in Hawaii) celebrated Christmas as a family tradition and secular holiday from school/work. I’m sure that can be said of other religious families & communities as well.

Now to be politically correct, American communities may also celebrate the 8 days of Hanukkah (Jewish Americans), Kwanzaa (Black Americans) from Dec. 26 to January 1, sometimes Bodhi Day (December 8 for Buddhists commemorating the birthday of Lord Buddha), and even Diwali (Hindu Festival of Lights) till mid-December.

However you celebrate these holidays, even if its just to get together & exchange gifts and fellowship, please reflect upon what faith means to you spiritually, and to spread love (and the “aloha spirit”) to your family, friends & neighbors.

And Merry Christmas to all today. Mele Kalikimaka in Hawaiian (click here for last year’s blog on the 12 days of Christmas – Hawaiian style).

It is December 12 and I started humming the 12 days of Christmas song (English version about the partridge in a a pear tree)– till the lyrics of the Hawaiian version came to mind.

“12 Days of Christmas Hawaiian Style” was apparently written in 15 minutes as three friends ate Chinese food in the living room of a Diamond Head (Oahu) home. So reported the Honolulu Star Bulletin in December, 1995.

The song was copyrighted in 1959 by Eaton "Bob" Magoon Jr.'s Hawaiian Recording and Publishing Co. Listed as its authors were composer/real estate developer Magoon, actor/singer Ed Kenney, and Gordon Phelps, then Magoon's assistant. (Hawaiian Recording and Publishing Co. is no longer in business, and neither is the Honolulu Star Bulletin, which went out of business recently in June, 2010).

The Hawaiian version starts off:

“Numbah One day of Christmas, my tutu give to me One mynah bird in one papaya tree.” (Tutu is grandmother in Hawaiian)

The hilarious song goes on to list:
Two coconuts
Three dried squid (yum)
Four flower lei
Five big fat pigs (pua’a, the Hawaiian pig)
Six hula lessons
Seven shrimps a-swimming
Eight ukuleles
Nine pounds of poi (that’s a lot of poi!)
Ten cans of beer (more politically correct versions now say “soda”)
Eleven missionaries
Twelve televisions

You can see how times have changed since 1959 (Hawaii’s statehood year) since it’s not politically correct to mention beer with young families anymore (even in Hawaii), nor Christian missionaries who first arrived in Hawaii in 1820. And color televisions were only starting to pop up in people’s homes back then.

Listen online to various different versions of this song, sung in Pidgin English (but I translated it for you readers, as I am fluent in Pidgin, having grown up on the Big Island).

Happy 12 days of Christmas!

Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas in Hawaiian) a bit early too.