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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Mele Kalikimaka

Last Friday I hung out with some of my friends. We played dominoes and ate lots of yummy food. During the festivities my friend Paula mentioned the Christmas song Mele Kalikimaka. Only 1 of her 6 guests had even heard of the song, and it wasn't me. There was much discussion about the song during the day. As we were leaving we all gathered around Paula's truck to hear Bing Crosby give his rendition and watch Paula do motions to the words.

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day.
That's the island greeting that we send to you from the land where palm trees sway.
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright.
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night.
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way to say Merry Christmas to you

On Sunday as we were waiting for our Christmas program to start at church different trivia questions were flashed across the screen up front. One of the questions was asking how to say Merry Christmas in Hawaiian. Mele Kalikimaka! Because of Paula I knew the answer!

Later that evening I was doing a little shopping at Target. A 4-pack of Jones soda caught my eye. Mele Kalikimaka flavor! Of course I had to buy it for Paula.



The flavor was light with a hint of pineapple and coconut. Yummy! Mele Kalikimaka everyone!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heehee! We had such fun over that!

Sra said...

When you consider the fact that Hawaiian always puts vowel sounds between consonant sounds, you can actually here "Merry Christmas" in the Hawaiian translation.

And I guess you also have to keep in mind the fact that R and L are often interchangeable across languages.

Anonymous said...

Wow, Sra, you're right! But its sort of like "Merry Crikmak". Close enough, though.

Anonymous said...

Mele Kalikimaka! I'm surprised there's someone out there who has never heard that song before though. Maybe it's my age showing! LOL

Mamadallama

Gina said...

They play that song in the movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", however it's in the part of the movie you have to 'edit' before watching with small children.
=)

Domestic Goddess said...

This is truly my favorite Christmas tune. I mean, favorite COMMERCIAL Christmas tune. O Holy Night is my all-time fav.

Natalie said...

emily s - it was fun!

sra - i think you might be right!

emily s - that sra...she's so smart!

mamadallama - my husband had heard of it, and we are the same age. of course he was raised in california so maybe that had something to do with it!

gina - i don't know that i've seen christmas vacation. if so it was years ago!

domestic goddess - how funny! of course now i love it! good stuff!

The Over-Thinker said...

Like Gina, I always think of that scene in Christmas Vacation. It's worth another watch if you get a chance. Especially the scenes with Uncle Eddie...

Natalie said...

over-thinker - i guess i'm going to have to rent it to see for myself. i don't remember the movie at all!