Partridge in a Palm Tree

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

It has been a weird holiday season for me. The separation from family, combined with the weather and fusion Hawaiian-Christmas music (imagine: The Beach Boys singing ‘White Christmas’ gaaah.) have kind of robbed the holiday from me. I probably should have written this post earlier, before I got used to the Hawaiian weirdness and it no longer bothered me. I spend a lot of time walking around, and I remember my incredulity at the vast differences between the holidays here and at home. I wrote a bunch of funny editorials in my head, and then promptly forgot them. It's annoying. It's like once my brain is done analyzing a situation, it is erased from my head and all I have left is a vague tingling sensation that I've forgotten something important, again.

This is the star of the downtown Honolulu decorations - Santa's big toe is about the size of my head. You could find Santa in various states of undress all around town, enjoying the Hawaiian lifestyle.

I think that is what I will miss the most (other than people) – seasons. The cooling weather, fires, hot chocolate, and home cooking are all missing out here. I just couldn’t get into it, which is saying something as you all know I am kinda Christmas-Crazy. All the aspects are there; Christmas lights downtown, pine trees, shopping hordes…could weather alone make that much of a difference? While I was overjoyed to spend a Christmas with my sister again after so many years, something was missing. The magic. The magic was missing. That sounds like a horribly cheesy tag line, but I'm not sure how else to convey it. Where did it go? As it is something nigh impossible to define, it will remain a mystery. Thank you to everyone who sent us a Christmas card – they were like little lifelines to back home where there was someone who missed us. We appreciated every one.

Heading to David's Office Christmas Party

Decorating the tree later that evening

Christmas Day itself was fun – David and I started out the day with a video conference back to the Dyer household. I do miss his crazy family, even though half the time I’m unsure if I’m being laughed with, or at. We have an evil plan to lure them all our for Christmas next year, which would be wonderful if only it could happen. Here’s hoping. Below is this year’s Dyer Christmas Portrait. They posed with us via the webcam. Pretty cool.

Then we loaded up and went over to Court and Paul’s to borrow their tree, and proceeded to open our presents. The ones who really made out like bandits were the dogs – flooded with the influx of toys, their little brains went hyperspastic. Many a stuffed toy met their end that day, when they (they being Lily) finally quit stealing from each other and settled down with one toy to destroy. I discovered that it is a good thing Bear is the most well-trained dog on earth – she can reduce anything to little pieces in about 10 minutes, if she really concentrates.

The dogs wait to open presents from my mom - I think they got more than I did.

Watch out, fish! Or in this case, Christmas tree.

David's big present was a subwoofer to complete his entertianment utopia.

The dogs rip into their gift

My present from David

Court and Paul are ready for the ocean! In case you were wondering, that thing Court is holding is to suck up fish so you can look at them closer.

Walkin' in a Wrapping Wonderland

David's new tradition for celebrating holidays

After that we headed out to a BBQ dinner on the beach. I had heard from somewhere that it is traditional to eat ahi (tuna) on Christmas, so that is what we had. Usually when I think I’ve heard something ‘from somewhere’ that somewhere is David, and since I’m too lazy to actually look it up myself, I can always point the finger at him in case I’m wrong.

David and I had bought a portable grill for future beach parties, so after a few false starts, it got its inauguration. We had a wonderful time, and after eating headed down to relax on the beach and laugh as Lily went into Beach Mode, which bears a striking resemblance to Freak Out Mode.

Paul tests our new beach grill

That's all you really see of Lily for the first 10 minutes - a blur.

Here we are enjoying one of my mom’s gifts – ridiculously nice beach towels. We all kept remarking that they felt too nice to put on the sand.

After, we crashed at Court’s and watched an episode of Firefly – which if you are a big SciFi dork like me, you will love. If you’re not, pretend that you don't know I am.

Mom sent Christmas Crackers with her gifts, and I thought that was just awesome. Here we are with our prizes.

So Aloha and Merry Christmas to you all from Oahu – I hope you enjoyed and cherished your respective holiday with your families.

T'was the Night Before Christmas

Christmas Eve found us, once again, enroaching upon Courtney and Paul's friends, as they are forced to invite us by proxy.

Julie and Charlie are extremely nice, and we had a wonderful time. I was amazed at the spread - I was expecting something along the lines of cheese and crackers, and instead I got a meal that included a ham. So we sat around and ate, getting to know everyone and gaining 10 lbs.



Here you can see us on the deck - their house is actually built right on the edge of a valley, so the deck actually hung out in space. It was really neat, but I kept having visions of the deck tragically collapsing and falling down the mountain. I was STILL eating, after all. I spent my time on the deck looking for handholds to save myself from doom after the collapse.



After dinner (and drinks) we played a fun game of pictionary, which as most of you know, I happen to adore. My team ended up winning, after a sneaky strategy involving Distraction by Crying Baby and me yelling really loud.


Court ended up being the best guesser ever





David considers his blank canvas



I'm not sure when the volume control got turned up, but towards the end i started SHOUTING everything for no particular reason. Very unlike me. I was pardoned, because whenever multiple people from both teams got it at the same time, the one thing everyone could agree on was that they heard me say it. HA.

My loud vocals in action



Once again, there was some Wii action. Charlie thought the fact that David bowled from his chair was hilarious, while he himself got so into it he ended up stumbling across the room and fell over a chair. Nice.





Finally, we were once again shamed by Hawaiian Giving as Julie and Charlie bought us GIFTS! What?! Seriously, this kept happening out here. People I hardly know kept giving me nicer presents than I got them, if I got them one at all. I spent a lot of this month being humbled. So much for southern hospitality.

Snow Day

So, I’m discovering why they call it the “Rainy Season”.

Apparently, winter here comes in the form of lots of rain – at lunch one day, some of my co-workers (Ok, I only have two – Derek and Wendy) were sitting around, reminiscing about bad floodings of the past. Fun! I recommend that if you are planning on visiting, maybe May – Nov. would be the best time frame. I would hate it if you came and it was raining. Tax busy season is Feb – April, so those are bad times to come anyway, for David. So it all works out.

Back to the weather; I thought Texas was fickle, but out here I’m just confounded. Looking out your window is not a good indicator for weather – David and I often stare up into the clear blue sky and exclaim, “Where is this rain coming from!?” I wish I could take a picture. It is usually a light drizzle when there are no clouds present, and if I close my eyes halfway, the sun hitting the raindrops looks pretty close to snow, so I can pretend for just a little bit.

I’m also learning about weather and elevation. I mean, I’m not retarded, it’s obviously going to be cooler and usually wetter the higher up I go. I’m just not used to having to plan for it. (‘I think I’ll take my bathing suit, sunscreen… oh, and my raincoat.’) I walk around downtown quite a bit, so after a few drenchings, I’ve learned to keep an umbrella with me at all times. Just because you leave the office to walk 4 blocks to lunch with clear skies doesn’t mean it won’t rain on you before you get there.

All this adds up to my first Hawaiian Snow Day! It was very exciting – eventually. Mainly the going back to bed part, anyway. As I’ve mentioned, David and I take The Boat into work each day, and on this particular day we drove to the harbor….and it was deserted. So we figured the boat wasn’t running due to high surf. So… we went to the bus stop. NOTHING! We were like, what the hell is up with this freaking ghetto-Hawaiian bus system. Defeated, we resigned ourselves to fighting the traffic into town, and paying $30 (!!) for parking. We got about 10 minutes in when I got a call from Wendy telling me to go home – I was more than happy to comply. A TV would have come in handy – but then again, since we get up at 4:45 and leave a little after 5, we probably wouldn’t have taken the time to watch the news anyway. It turned out that a huge storm had come in, flooding parts off the island, knocking out most of the electricity, and actually cutting off one whole part of the island, as the only road in/out was blocked with debris. It was kinda of nuts. I’m amazed I wasn’t getting calls from my mom, in hysterics. As she puts it, “I don’t like the thought that both of my children are stuck on a rock in the middle of the ocean.”

So I went home, and spent a few more blissful hours in bed, and then took care of some house stuff. Poor David, he can work from home, so they tracked him down.

We got outside for a little bit - I wish you could tell how big the waves were - they made for some not fun boat trips for the next week.

In all, it hasn’t been a very rainy season this year, apparently. We still get a fair amount of sun, and the rain index says we have only gotten around 50% of the rain that is normal for this time of year.

One thing that I enjoy about the season is that our side becomes beautifully green. We prefer to live on the dry side, as the snorkeling is better (less runoff) and since it rains less often, we have more chances of being outside. A sad side effect is that, true to it’s name, it gets dry and kinda brown in the summer. But right now, coming in on the boat each day we get a great view of the wonderful lush paradise we live in.

Sugar and Spice

Me and sugar – we’re like PB&J. Well….almost. Maybe I should stick to cakes.

To get into the holiday spirit, David and I joined up with the team from Ernst & Young to enter a Gingerbread House Competition. I wasn’t at the planning meeting, but I heard about it from David – let’s just say that accountants aren’t the most creative types. Nor do they attempt to expand their horizons, either. David’s out of the box ideas were shut down. So they decided to just make a town. I called dibs on the firehouse.

So we showed up at the convention center, with the only planned element the eye-bleedingly orange shirts they had passed out. Of course, I had brought along my decorating toolbox – there was icing involved, after all. You know when you sometimes feel like a dork because you might be over-prepared? I definitely had that complex going on – that people were laughing at me and my toolbox. I got over that real quick, however, when we walked in and I saw people who had actually built a support structure for their creations. So I promptly slid to the other end of insecurity – people were laughing at my sad attempt at being prepared. Don’t hate on my toolbox! I have issues.

Anyway, it turns out I don’t know what the hell I’m doing if it isn’t a cake. The bare bones structure (gingerbread) looked like someone gave a 5 year old a hacksaw. Luckily, after that I got to revisit my love/hate relationship with my toolbox as I set about covering up the atrocity with icing.

It turned out alright – naturally, I think it was the best one in the town. Thanks to David for hanging in there as I went into decorator mode, in which I surprisingly turn into this rushed, snappy lady who takes things away from you because you aren’t doing it right. Or fast enough. It didn’t help someone brought their kids who wanted to ‘help me’. Ack! I don't mean to squash your creative tendencies...but get away from me.

I don’t have kids yet for a reason.

In the end, our display was kinda sad, but I had a good time getting to know his co-workers, a little. Here are some of the other gingerbread houses:

This one kind of freaked me out - what is up with the aerobatic Santa-clones!?

And now, the Third Place Winner in the traditional section….. OURS!

I think there were only four entries in our whole section. Ha. Oh well, I’ll take it. That means there was someone who was less talented than us. Yes! Ha ha...Losers.