Mele Kalikimaka -- A Hawaiian Christmas Song

Aloha!! This is a Christmas song that you may not have heard before but it is a song that I know from my childhood.

 

My Dad is a big Bing Crosby fan and he would always play this song every Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

My sister (the one who is my Irish twin) and I thought it was a very funny song because it has a funny title and is about Christmas in Hawaii and "the land where palm trees sway."  While dressed in our pajamas, my sister and I would get up and perform for the rest of the family and sing and dance the hula.  I'm not sure why our other siblings didn't join us but they always would watch as we got up and emoted all over the place.

 

These kinds of memories hold a special place in my heart and I find them comforting as well as healing.  They help me remember that there is still that little girl still inside me who knows how to be silly and enjoy the moment!

 

I hope you have similiar holiday memories that you also cherish and perhaps you even made a few yesterday as you celebrated Christmas with your family and friends. 

 

As they say in Hawaii -- Mele Kalikimaka!

 

That's the island greeting that I send to you and yours during this holiday season.

Here is the YouTube version of Bing Crosby singing Mele Kalikimaka and a slideshow of Hawaiian scenes:
 

It's A Girl!

 

 

 

The daughter of a very good friend of mine gave birth early yesterday morning to a baby girl!

I am very excited for the parents of this beautiful new baby and my friend and her husband who now are grandparents. 

 

It's so magical to me that on Wednesday morning she was a mother and a wife (and lots of other great things too!) but by Thursday morning she had become a grandmother and met her first grandchild.

 

You really never know what life has in store for you! 

Becoming a parent is the adventure of a lifetime.  I mean this in the best of all ways.  I have loved every minute of it.  There is a lot of repetition and hard work involved in raising a child, either as a single parent or as part of a couple, but the rewards are priceless.

 

When we are with babies and young children we see the world in a fresh and new way for their reactions to the world are spontaneous and unfiltered.  I also discovered that being with my own son when he was a child, or other people's young children, could be healing in the sense that everything else that has happened to you that day falls away and the time spent with a child highlights what is really important in life.

 

Taking their hands, comforting them, teaching them right from wrong and helping them to learn how to take care of themselves is repeated over and over, the stuff of everyday life.  But it's also the stuff of a super love that you feel for your child and that super love never decreases even as they need you less and less.

 

I think the parents of this new baby girl are going to be great and I look forward to watching them take their journey together as a family.

 

P.S. Don't forget to have fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!