Ron Boyd on holiday traditions in Hawaii. Get on board the Hoku Nui for a snorkel or manta ray tour and create a new holiday tradition in the beautiful waters off the Kona Coast.
Hawaii is famous for being known for its unique traditions and amazingly enjoyable customs of celebrating certain holidays in ways that not everyone has even heard of.
To learn a little bit more about the Aloha state and to see if living in Kaua’i, or any neighboring island is for you, we’ve put together a group of some of the traditions you can get up to here during the holiday season.
Kālua Dinner
The typical Christmas feast at a Hawaiian table is Kālua Pig. Usually seasoned only with Hawaiian sea salt, the pig is cooked in a pit dug into the ground, as Kālua refers to cooking in an underground pit.Singing Hawaiian Christmas Carols
Hawaiians pull out the ukulele or a guitar and sing their own versions of Christmas carols. A luau or family dinner might turn into a big sing-along with hula dancing and Christmas classics sung in Hawaiian.Christmas Tree Marina
Because a tropical climate isn’t ideal for an old-fashioned Christmas Tree Farm you might see in the Lower 48, a few ships dock in early December, bringing refrigerated containers with genuine Christmas trees inside.Mele Kalikimaka!
I think we’ve all heard Bing Crosby and a few others make this Hawaiian Christmas chorus a household tune. And “Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day,” couldn’t be truer. Locals use this term to wish people a wonderful festive season.
BOTTOM LINE: There are so many unique holiday traditions when it comes to Hawaiian culture, which is one of the greatest aspects of what makes this state so beautiful and rich in history.
