Christmas in Kealia South Kona by George Kahumoku Jr 12-1-24
When I was growing up, in Kealia, we attended Puka’ana Church (A United Church of Christ) across the street, about a football field away from our home. All 26 cousins, uncles, aunties, and our grandparents would sing Hawaiian Hymns and play Hawaiian music every Sunday. But on Christmas Eve we would go Christmas Caroling with Grandpa Willy playing Slackkey Guitar on horseback.
Growing up, we had an old ‘47 Willys Jeep for transportation to Kainaliu where we would go shopping for salt, sugar and cloth material for sewing our clothes. We had an old treadle Singer sewing machine that Tutu Koko’o would use to sew us new clothes for Christmas. We didn’t have a radio in the house, but we had a radio in our 1947 Willy’s Jeep!
However, the Willy’s Jeep didn’t have a battery, but we would back up the jeep onto the stone wall onto two planks. We would put the jeep into second gear and kick start the Jeep to get it running so we could listen to the radio. However, up in the Mountains of Kealia we had no radio reception, so we would drive 3 miles down to Kealia Beach where we could listen to the radio and listen to Christmas Songs during the Christmas Holiday.
On Christmas Eve, we would saddle up our horse, Jimmy Boy, and take our instruments and go house to house in our Kealia Village singing Christmas Carols, and Grandpa Willy would play his Slackey Guitar on horseback. People would donate money and food from our Christmas caroling through Puka’ana Church to give to those less fortunate. After Caroling house to house, we would go home, open up the Imu (underground oven), and share a Christmas dinner of Kalua pig, Kalua sweet potatoes, breadfruit, Uhi (wild yams), lomi salmon, raw lobster and sea urchin poke, raw opihi (limpets) salted with Limu Kohu, and dried opelu (makeral) fish with Haupia and Kalua Kulolo (taro, coconut milk, and brown sugar) dessert. Tutu Koko’o also made pineapple-upside down cake that she served with hot Mamaki tea. All the food we ate came all from what we raised on our farm, gathered from the ocean and grew in our garden. We didn't have a regular Christmas tree, but we decorated our front porch with tinsel and Christmas ornaments and decorated a chrysanthemum tree near the front-porch .
On Christmas morning, we opened up Christmas presents and our leftovers from the night before for breakfast. After cleaning up, we walked three miles down to the beach till the sunset and spent the night at our beach house in Kealia.
