While waiting for the feelers he’d put out on Britton—who’d seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth and hopefully wasn’t swimming with the sharks as the bartender had suggested—the day after his visit to The Blue Parrot, Donovan discovered that Lani wasn’t exaggerating about the Island’s Christmas celebration.
While the mainland Americans might be dreaming of a white Christmas, Orchid Island had its own unique take on the holiday. The parade was much the same as ones happening in most places in the world. The floats, many covered in flowers, were lit with white and colored lights while girls waving flags and pom poms marched along with the high school band. Also marching were uniformed Girl and Boy Scouts while military vets going back to World War II either marched or rode on floats that garnered the most cheers. The route wound through the town, past sidewalks filled with families, most dressed in holiday-themed attire, ending at the beach in front of the Breslins’ home.
Which was where Kanakaloka, aka Santa Claus, dressed in a red-and-white poinsettia aloha shirt, red board shorts, and a traditional red Santa hat arrived in an outrigger canoe with dolphins swimming alongside, to hand out brightly wrapped gifts.
The trunks of all the palm trees had been strung with bright lights, and a play snow zone had been set up at the end of the beach with, Thomas informed Donovan, twelve tons of the icy white stuff he’d had shipped in.
“What’s the point of having money if you don’t use it to make others happy?” he asked Donovan, proving yet again the difference between Lani’s family and his. His own parents were spending Christmas in London this year. Last year was Paris, and the year before that, they’d gone on a Greek Island cruise.
A late, unplanned child, Donovan had never been mistreated. His childhood had been more of benign neglect, beginning with a series of nannies, housekeepers, and boarding schools.
Watching the snowball fights taking place, he decided that these laughing, shouting, shrieking kids would rather be here, with family and friends, than getting a golden ticket to Disneyworld.
“Your dad certainly pulled out all the stops,” Donovan said as he watched, at the very edge of the battle zone, another smaller, quieter group of children industriously building a snowman that would doubtfully last the night, but tonight, there were no cares nor thoughts about tomorrow. There was only now. Island time.
“In ancient times, the islands celebrated Makahkiki , a New Year festival that covered four lunar months from the fall into February or March,” she explained. “It was to honor the god Lono, and the bounty of the land. During those months, all wars were forbidden.”
“A season of peace and goodwill to all men,” he said.
“True. But that was a concept impossible to explain to the Protestant missionaries who arrived in the 1820s with their own ideas of proper religious practices,” she said. “Since they banned ancient gods, most of what we celebrate today came from them.” Although her voice had sounded a little sad about the loss of an ancient tradition, she smiled. “Of course, the missionaries, mostly from New England in the early days, didn’t have a king who could bring in snow, so they undoubtedly missed their white Christmases.”
Local merchants had donated items for a raffle with funds going to the local food bank. Taylor had contributed a huge basket filled with an assortment of her bestselling candy, while Thomas had provided a signed oil painting depicting a trio of dancing dolphins wearing Santa hats. It had been painted, Lani told Donovan, during her father’s Oceana stage.
So many people had lined up to buy tickets you’d think they were giving away free musubis . Lani had bought him one of the sandwiches consisting of a fried slice of Spam on rice pressed together into a small block, then wrapped in seaweed, from a street vendor. She’d assured him that not only were they the most popular to-go snack in the islands, eating one was a rite of passage for any malihini (newcomer) aspiring to achieve local status.
When the sun sank into the Pacific in a blaze of color, the night became alive with fire and music while long tables draped in red and green linens were covered with platters of food. If Donovan had found Orchid Island to be a different world than the mainland, tonight he felt as if he’d stumbled into a DeLorean and gone two hundred years back in time.
Flaming torches glowed a brilliant orange against the star-studded black sky as the throbbing beat of drums echoed the pounding of waves against the dark lava ramparts. The sultry night air was perfumed by myriad flowers adorning the huge backyard, their hues rivaled by the brilliant aloha shirts, dresses, and brightly flowered muumuus, which, Lani told him, were updated adaptions of the voluminous Mother Hubbards, which those early missionaries had forced on the indigenous population.
Greetings of Mele Kalikimaka were exchanged, many directed to him, as, Lani suggested with one of those sunny laughs he’d come to love, people were checking him out to make sure he was good enough for her.