While I love Christmas, I’m recalling that when my grandson was 3, he would announce that he was half Christian and half Jewish.
My grandmother was Taoist, and many of my friends are Buddhists, so how about I just skip over Dec. 25 and move on to the 31st, New Year’s Eve in Hawaii. Once you’ve experienced it, who can forget? Ask all the visitors and settlers who are surprised that fireworks are legal here. And by Jan. 2, I guarantee there will be letters to the editor in all the island newspapers complaining about the noise, the smell, the smoke, how they couldn’t sleep, how their asthma acted up, how their pets went berserk.
“There outta be a law!” they loudly rage.
“There is,” we calmly reply.
Which is why we now have to get a permit to blow up certain kinds of fireworks not only on New Year’s Eve, but the Fourth of July. Not like before.
In the old days, these two holidays were events to anticipate because children could stay up late to play with firecrackers. There were also Roman candles, bursting fountains, whistling rockets, ground spinners, sidewalk poppers, flashy sparklers and more.
None of these were dangerous, but kids always invented ways to make them seem so, lighting firecrackers in empty cans and juggling four Roman candles at a time.
New Year’s Eve in Hawaii is also when families and friends come together to welcome in the new year with ear-splitting noise to chase away bad luck, but also to feast. All the ‘ohana gathers to pig out at an overflowing table, then waits until dark to begin the fireworks.
There are always a few renegades in the neighborhood who start early, so on the afternoon of the eve we can hear firecracker pops, one here, two there, until the crescendo starts building with more noise, getting louder, smokier and smellier until just before midnight when everyone heads outside for the countdown.
By then, the uncles have already tied the firecrackers onto poles propped up by ladders which are sternly supervised so no random spark can prematurely start the strings of 10,000 good-luck reds. Close to the magic hour, the grand symphony begins and the sky lights up all over town.
Anyone who knows anything takes care of the infants and animals well before this time. Babies usually sleep through, but dogs with their hyper hearing and olfactories go crazy, so akamai animal owners know to put their precious pet in a closet padded with towels and pillows.
You can tell by now that memories of New Year’s Eve in Hawaii are fondly etched onto my heart.
I didn’t know how unique our tradition was until I married and lived on the continent, where we made plans for New Year’s by (1) lining up a babysitter weeks in advance if we wanted a good one (but good or bad, we had to pay double), (2) going with friends to some club filled with smoke (but not from delicious fireworks), (3) eating ho-hum food (where’s the sashimi?), (4) drinking too much (whaddaya mean there’s no Primo?), (5) gyrating like crazy under a dizzying disco ball (have I just given away my age?), and (6) blowing half-heartedly on roll-out paper horns, a pitiful substitute in sound and merriment to firecrackers.
Why would anyone prefer that over New Year’s Eve in Hawaii, where they can be surrounded by boisterous friends and family, plates overflowing with sushi, squid luau, tou see oxtail, kalua pork, nishime, kalbi, lumpia, pipinola, pasteles, (the list goes on) along with heart-thumping booms, eye-burning smoke and stinky sulphur smells?
I have no idea, and yet, in the days following, there will be cranky demands for new laws prohibiting fireworks, causing me to wonder why some folks haven’t figured it out yet.
My suggestion to those who object to the way Hawaii rings in the New Year, is to simply distance yourself on this auspicious holiday. On Dec. 31, just go to a place that suits your style of celebration, instead of trying to get us to change ours.
Sounds easy and sensible, don’t it?
Rochelle delaCruz was born in Hilo, graduated from Hilo High School, then left to go to college. After teaching for 30 years in Seattle, Wash., she retired and returned home to Hawaii. Rochelle welcomes your comments at rainysideview@gmail.com. Her column appears the second and fourth Monday of each month.
