Christmas Two Ways

PCS Adventures Team

If you marry someone in the military, Christmas can be an adventure. We often have no idea where we’ll be from season to season. Many Christmases my husband was deployed. The next year we might have been in the middle of a PCS. Every once in a while, we’d be settled and enjoying a traditional Christmas Day with family or new military friends.

No matter what Christmas looks like this year, I’ve learned being flexible keeps that Christmas spirit alive. Team member Rebecca and I rounded up two of our favorite Christmas memories to share with you.

Rebecca’s Mele Kalikimaka

The first Christmas my husband and I spent together blurs because we were preparing to PCS to Hawaii the end of January. So our first memorable Christmas was the following year in Hawaii.

Hugh Beebower/PCS Adventures

Shaka Santa and Tute Mele preside over Honolulu City Lights each year.

Christmas in Hawaii brought a joyfully different experience from my childhood growing up in Western Arkansas. A display in downtown Honolulu featured a giant Santa in beach comber trunks making the “shaka” sign with one hand and an equally large Mrs. Claus dressed in a m’umu’u sitting next to him. “Mele Kalikimaka” was spelled out with huge toy blocks in front of the jolly couple.

A few weeks before Christmas, my friend, Denise asked me if I wanted to go to a Norfolk Pine tree farm to get a live Christmas tree. An image of a small evergreen in a planter adorned with red bows popped into my head.

Jonathan Sloan/PCS Adventures

Helemano Farms in Wahiawa offers beautiful, live trees each year.

Since I had never gone to a tree farm, I happily agreed to go. Besides the ficus trees and the Poinsettia bushes living outside in Hawaii were giantic. I was excited to see what a Norfolk Pine would look like. I was not disappointed.

Denise and I did our best to navigate through mud behind a guy wearing rubber boots, something I wished I’d brought. He led us to row upon row of tall, lovely Norfolk Pines.

I wondered how we were going to get two big trees in Denise’s van. She told me the tree guy would chop off the top of the trees to make transport manageable. Sure enough we managed to haul two trees to our apartment building.

My decorated Norfolk Pine treetop reminded me of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but it had lots of character!

I love to Christmas shop and wrap presents to put under a tree! My husband Howard’s family tradition is to give money in lovely red envelopes as gifts for holidays and birthdays.

Not to be detered, I took Howard to the Navy Exchange and showed him all the items I liked. He returned to the store alone to buy the gifts and then did his best to wrap them. It was’t hard to tell what my gifts were by the shape and size of the boxes, but I didn’t care. There were presents under our tree!

Howard’s father and one of his sisters lived in Palolo Valley. On Christmas Day we went to Dad’s house for an authentic Chinese meal. Howard’s sister Lucy taught me how to make fresh spring rolls. It was fun learning from her. The rolls were a little misshaped, but they were still yummy as were all the other dishes I ate. I was proud of my small contribution to the family Christmas meal!

Jonathan Sloan/PCS Adventures

Denise, Jonathan and Bailey joined Howard and I for Christmas dinner.

Later that evening, we invited Denise, Jonathan and their dog Bailey over for a Christmas dinner. Denise brought supplies to build a gingerbread train. Neither Howard nor I had ever built anything from gingerbread. We labored to be creative, but it was rather messy and comical to get the icing on the gingerbread just right and then add the candy. Denise and Jonathan were patient with us. We had fun and we were happy that the result looked like a train!

I treasure the memories of mine and Howard’s first Christmas together in Hawaii. It was an honor to be invited into all the different Christmas traditions with family and friends. It was a rich experience for me for which I am grateful.

Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

Denise’s Christmas Disaster

The reports weren’t pretty. Docker workers on strike in Los Angeles held our household goods, everything we owned, hostage. Our move to Georgia from South Korea took a turn for the worst. Our inventory of supplies consisted of a few pairs of clothes, an inflatable mattress, a couple of folding chairs and dog paraphernalia. Christmas looked bleak indeed.

Then inspiration struck! We’d buy a real tree and make our own decorations. We even made new friends to invite to our impromptu cookie ornament decorating party. We felt pretty proud of ourselves for rolling with it.

Jonathan Sloan/PCS Adventures

We decorated gingerbread cookies to use as ornaments on our Christmas tree.

So our little band of merry makers dressed gingerbread men, candy cane and star shaped cookies with layers of frosting and candy. Then we strung popcorn to use as a tree garland.

The Grinch didn’t steal our Christmas after all! We happily festooned our tree with the cookies and popcorn swag. It looked pretty darn good, if I do say so.

We had, however, overlooked one thing in our Christmas decorating zeal. Dogs. Yes, dogs. We had two of them and it never occurred to either of us that the fully decorated tree created a doggie buffet.

Denise Sloan/PCS Adventures

The havoc our dogs caused this Christmas lives on in infamy.

But our dogs wasted no time in tracking down the source of the delicious smells. While we visited with our new friends, they promptly ate about 1/4 of the lower tree decorations. We suddenly realized an abnormal quiet had enveloped the house. Shortly thereafter all heck broke lose. A quick search turned up two happy dogs snarfing down all the decorations. The scene reminded me of the Bumpuses’ dogs devouring the turkey in “A Christmas Story”.

One dog merrily munched on a string of popcorn. Unfortunately it was still attached to the tree, causing the entire thing to topple over. The other dog froze with a innocent, mangled gingerbread man wedged in his mouth. He knew the gig was up and looked slightly guilty, especially as he glanced down at the crumb-laden floor that convicted him of gingerbread homicide.

After the initial mayhem and chaos of removing the dogs from the vicinity of the tree, my husband and I regrouped. Only the top half of the tree needed decorations, we decided. Yes, a half decorated tree seemed ideal.

Denise Sloan/PCS Adventures

Half of our tree had no decorations this year thanks to two hungry dogs

And so our third Christmas together proved to be one of our most unusual with half of the tree decorated with homemade ornaments and two dogs who hoped to repeat the mouth-watering buffet.

Eventually the dock employees returned to work and our stuff finally arrived. The next Christmas we decorated normally. But I caught the dogs sniffing the tree more than once. I imagine they were longing for that smorgasbord of decorations.

Despite the unbalanced tree, this turned out to be one of the most memorable and fun Christmases we’ve had. Sometimes interrupted plans can be a good thing, giving you the opportunity to try new things and laugh together at the absurdity of it all. So stay flexible and keep your eye out for hungry dogs and gingerbread men.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!