Mele Kalikimaka

Mele Kalikimaka or Merry Christmas!

I have to admit that I do enjoy spending Christmas somewhere warm, with the sun shining, the waves crashing and sand under my toes. My dad and I are getting into a bit of a rhythm - he gets up, usually I am down at the pool eradicating my seasonal depression and then him and I go snorkelling somewhere. We have been snorkelling each day that I have been here and we try and go somewhere new each time. We have been very fortunate to see turtles each day and today when we were at the beach with my mom, there were 2 turtles in quite shallow, so lots of kids could see them which was cool. As mentioned, my dad and I went snorkelling this morning - we went to what is commonly known as the `snorkel beach` and after our snorkel, he dropped me off at White Sands Beach and went to get my mom and the 3 of us spent the afternoon at the beach. It was nice to see so many families spending Christmas this way.


Last night we joined half of the Big Island for a candle light church service which was located outside on the lawn of the Lighthouse Church (?), with the waves crashing in the background and the palm trees lit up in red and green. Now this service was a little different than what this conservative Anglican is used to. Firstly, there was an amazing praise band who played a full range of Christmas carols - for those of you non-Anglicans, Christmas carols aren't sung until after Christmas - not sure why, but that is just the rule. They even sang one of my most favourite carols - Oh Holy Night, which almost had me in tears. All in all, it was a lovely service - lasted about 1 1/2 hours and then we headed back home (along with half of the island - seriously, there had to have been over 500 people at the service)

Thanks to Safeway, we won`t be starving tonight - the turkey is currently in the oven. You can buy a whole dinner, complete with all the fixings, pre-cooked that you just reheat - it smells like Christmas in here but without all of the work. Well, supper is almost ready, so I will sign out - Merry Christmas to you and yours!