Christmas -- buy local trees

[Kelena]

There was certainly nothing political about my comment. I don't think the decision to get a Christmas tree is a political decision. But the island makes you look at things in new ways. You are naturally more deliberate about bringing something all the way to the island, than you would be if you are considering buying that same object on the mainland. At least some people are.

My partner and I had a heated discussion when he had a strong craving and so bought frozen Salmon at the Malama Market.....Atlantic Salmon! Salmon caught IN THE ATLANTIC and flown across the mainland, put on a container ship, and floated to Hawaii. I totally didn't get that. I didn't get dinner that night.

I don't think that anyone need feel guilty because they want a tree, but I do think importing Christmas trees to Hawaii is an odd extravagance. There are (or were) a lot of Christmas trees in Germany where the tradition began. None in Hawaii. They have to be grown in farms on the mainland and then loaded in containers and shipped to Hawaii. How many does Hawaii get? I'll say 25 containersful. Dat's a lot of Saudi Arabian oil.

My first Hawaiian Christmas was spent on Kauai. It was 82 degrees and dry. Not too many people decorated for Christmas and
I realized that I liked how low key the holiday seemed in the islands. Then I realized that some holidays and traditions just don't travel --or translate-- very well, at least for me.

But I have been feeling that Christmas has been overblown for some time, and has drifted quite far from Christmases we once knew. When I was a kid, the season began a couple weeks before the Holiday. The best way to get away from this was to just "sit the frenzy out" and to focus on downsizing the whole affair. My partner and I do put up a tree here (it comes out of a box), but we buy few presents, and instead focus on rest, reflection and rejuvenation during the holidsys. And count the money we saved compared to the old days when we went all out.

Being in Hawaii for Christmas intensified this feeling that maybe one year, we ought to just sit Christmas out completely.

So no tree for me this year. Most Americans will make a different choice. More power to them.

That's why I choose to live in a completely anarchic country with no principles other than the desires of the marketplace.

[PunaLover]

No guilt KathyH, please
that's the dea herel, there should be guilt if you don't have , can't get, can not do. I was an alterboy, I gave up feeling guilty when the church changed from latin to english, turned up the lights and began facing the people and I understood what they were saying. Well poo, didn't I, as a child feel like, what's with the lies? To heades with guilt.

Yes, I too have fond memories of pine smell and the whole picture. Heck got 7 brothers and sisters and it was like the Walton's only catholic not baptist, and not nearly as pleasant. This was before the show Eight is Enough. It's too many, trust me. One christmas when I was 10 though, and had an ear infection, my mom let me sleep on the couch in the livingroom with the tree lit all night. Got the big Jaguar XKE model that I know they couln't afford with 8 kids but I was hurtin, throbs to the eardrum everytime you swallow. No matter that was then, this is now.

600 years ago in germany when they started this, there were more forests in the world than today. Farmed or not it would make more sense to grow hemp on the same land for fuel.
It will all be irrellivent very soon. At $10. a gal for gas by next year? Ok $5. but it's only a matter of time it will be $10. eventually and only the well spoiled will continue to get those farm grown spruce, even when they will be $150. ea. Complete with german wasps. Ya vol!

Many things from out childhood we can,... still do,..... but should we.... still do them, is the question to ask yourself, grasshopper? Christmas on the mainland has more baggage with it, than cheer. Hawaii I find IS, christmas and thanksgiving everyday of the year, ALOHA.

Why do "we" (non-hawaiian born) have to have all the stuff we had somewhere else and bring all over the world and shove it down everyone's throat?
Personally I can't wait till Jan.1st (erin!) when all this is over again for awhile. Too much work these holidays. Maybe I'm just gettin too old, ba hum-bug in the rug.

Happy Turkey Gluttony Ya'll,
I think I'll have Atlantic Salmon


KEEP PUNA RURAL

[janeadams]

Tolleys,

I've seen a sign just down Kahakai from 130 on the right as you're headed makai. I think it was for cut norfolks.

There's a lot full of junipers that is on the corner of Pahoa Village road and Apaa (rubbish dump road). They've sold them for at least the last 3 years.

You can get live norfolks at Paradise Plants in Hilo, and I've even seen them in Walmart. The Walmart ones were grown by H. Eunice nursery, a long-time local nursery. I'll bet you can also find live ones at Garden Exchange, though I can't swear to that!

Jane

[missydog1]

punapetah, enjoyed your childhood memories ...
I was not raised in a Christian church or with a large family, so I don't know what that's like except from observing friends when I was growing up.

Maybe because we had a family of four, the tree made Christmas time special ... we didn't have enough bodies for a party. It was my job to decorate the tree from when I was seven and I loved it. (My mom has always wanted to boycott Christmas, before her time, born in the '20's).

when I moved here I was amazed how big a craze there was for Christmas stuff and all the imported trees. My observation -- as I said on the Walmart topic -- it is NOT transplanted mainlanders bringing their customs with them who are buying all these trees.

It is local familes who are buying the majority of the trees and all the decorations!
Just watch in the parking lot and look in the carts!

Island folks love Christmas. Blame the missionaries, or the Catholicism that came with Filipino and Portugese immigrants, or maybe it's a human thing to enjoy ritual, glitter, lights, and sweets ...

I think that mainland transplants who believe in alternative living are far less likely to buy a Christmas tree. Like I said, I haven't bought one since I moved here. The last time I bought a tree (on mainland) was 1997, and that was the first one I'd had since 1986.

we

[PunaLover]

Can't remember one I've ever paid $$$ for?


KEEP PUNA RURAL