Leslie Karst

Holidays in Hilo

Thanksgiving is now past, which means we’re full-throttle into the holiday season. For some, that means hot toddies by the fireplace, ugly (or beautiful, depending on the eye of the beholder) sweaters, picking out a Christmas tree, and tobogganing in the snow.

(Okay, having just typed that, I had to look up the etymology of “toboggan,” a word I heard a lot more back in the 1960s than I do now. Do people still use the term? Anyway, it’s apparently an early 19th century word from the Canadian French tabaganne, which derives from the Micmac word topaĝan, for “sled.” Lesson over.)

But what about in Hilo? What do folks here do here in Hawai‘i, come the winter holidays? Pretty much what they do on the Mainland, is what.

First off, yes, we have snow on the Big Island!

Maunakea in all her glory (mauna means mountain; kea means white)

And a favorite pastime around here is to drive your truck up to the lower slopes of the mauna, shovel snow into it, and bring it back down to the house to build a snowman. Which will last all of about two hours before melting.

We also decorate our homes for the holiday celebrations. Some folks go all out, with dazzling lights, enormous inflatable Santas in their front yards, and reindeer running across their corrugated metal roofs. Robin and I don’t go that far, but we do put up holiday fairy lights, and I also do some indoor decorating. Here’s my little Norfolk pine (a tropical evergreen tree) which lives outdoors all year except for now, when I bring it in to decorate with my favorite ornaments.

I put up a crèche each year, too, complete—of course—with the traditional Christmas tiki, chicken, gecko, and lobster! (Thanks to my author pal, Edith Maxwell, for mailing me the lobster from New England!)

And I also often bake Christmas cookies here in Hilo. The ones pictured are made with cookie cutters I bought some years back in Fairbanks, Alaska. (They’re mushers–dressed as Santa Claus–in dog sleds, with the team of dogs to pull them, in case you can’t tell.)

For Christmas day, Robin and I tend to get together with friends, since so many people’s families live on the Mainland. But we always have good fun, as they like to say in these parts. We’ll start with cocktails out on the lānai,

and then gorge on whatever delicacies we’ve cooked up that year. My family always had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for Christmas dinner when I was growing up, but last year my pal Norbert and I made Beef Wellington for the crowd. And my, oh my, was it good!

This year, we’ll be celebrating Hanukkah as well as Christmas, now that Robin has decided to convert to Judaism. (You can read about that here, and get a delicious recipe for challah, as well.) The first day of Hanukkah falls on Christmas night this year, so I’m thinking of cooking a brisket, rather than roast beef—but I’ll still make the Yorkshire pud to go along with it!

a Hanukkah party a few years back at our neighbors’ house here in Hilo

Whatever your holiday plans may be, I hope they are stress-free, and full of fun, family, friends, frou-frou drinks, and fabulous food!

Mele Kalikimaka, everyone!

[And by the way, if you’d like to read all about my beloved Hilo, my Orchid Isle mystery, MOLTEN DEATH, is now available as a paperback!]

Readers: What are your holiday traditions? Have they changed over the years?

21 thoughts on “Holidays in Hilo”

  2. The holidays sound lovely at your home, Leslie. And appreciative of that living tree you bring indoors to decorate. The chicken in the crèche!🐣And all that delicious food!

    Hope you and Robin have a wonderful holiday season!

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    2. I had to laugh at Leslie’s creche too, Jen! Ours has all the traditional figures, as well as a vinyl ghost, a half-size Barbie, a Lego robot, and a Boba Fett, among other things. When the kids were little, every year I’d pull it out of the storage box to find another thing in it. When I was a kid, I often got to set up our creche and we had these three plastic bigger-than-everything-else magi on horseback. I’d put them across the room from the manger and every day gallop them a tad closer. Mid-December they were in the center of the living room and I had to admonish everyone not to step on them or knock them over. With ten of us clomping around a small house, I was quite the harried child! It was my own little brand of advent calendar to count down the days. I miss those old times, and to be honest, I get a little sad during the holidays remembering how much fun we used to have with so many of us running around.

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      2. I so love this story of moving the three wise men closer to Bethlehem each day! Now I may need to do the same thing….

        And yes, I too get a little nostalgic each year for the family get-togethers we’d have each year at Christmas. Sigh.

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  3. I didn’t really have any until I moved. Now decorating outside and in, setting up my Christmas villages, finding new African American angels for my sister’s collection, collecting nativity scenes and angel decorations for my angel tree give me bliss during the season.

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  4. Leslie, I am beset with jealousy at how you get the best of some many words in Hilo. We actually started our decorating this weekend, especially since Thanksgiving was so late this year. I’m going all out because my brother will be in town and joining us for Christmas dinner with his girlfriend. It’s the first one without Mom, so I want it to be special to make up for that.

    And mazel tov to Robin! I was considering officially becoming a reform Jew before Jer and I met. But he was raised Catholic and is a “fallen soldier,” so we agreed on no organized religion before we married. BTW, that challah recipe looks awesome! I may have to give it a try. But if you’re doing Channukah, you’ll have to make jelly donuts.

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    1. So happy you get to celebrate Christmas with your brother this year, El! And yes, maybe jelly donuts–or malasadas, since we’re in Hawai’i–for our Christmas/Channukah dinner!

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  6. What a warm and wonderful holiday season coming up for you and Robin, Leslie! (Well, okay, I guess the season is already here! I’m still recovering from Thanksgiving, lol.) I especially noticed your Norfolk pine. Had to laugh, because we were gifted 3 of them over time, and they are now all the way to the ceiling in the room where we put our Christmas tree. We’ll have to figure out how to push those heavy pots around to make room, ha. We do put fairy lights on them, and a few clip-on cardinals. But our Tree Room is starting to look like a jungle!

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  7. What a wonderful post, Leslie! Your descriptions and photos make me feel as if I were there–and “there” sounds absolutely incredible.

    I had Yorkshire pudding with roast beef for the first time this Thanksgiving, courtesy of my Yorkshireman. DELISH. Looking forward to more feasting, friends, family–and fabulous pics of your celebrations!

    Mele Kalikimaka and mazel tov to Robin! ❤

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    1. One year my mom got a little tipsy before Christmas dinner (okay, so we all were) and she forgot to put the flour in the Yorkshire pud, so we ended up with Yorkshire omelette, lol.

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