Gavin and I were on the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree for our little place. We have tall ceilings, so we thought of maybe getting a super tall tree or those half a trees. But then we saw a Palm Christmas Tree and we thought that would be perfect for our place and it was!
We set it up when Gavin's mom was here and I was surprised by how many ornaments we fit on the tree. We just loved looking at our little Palm all month. It sure made the house feel a little cozier. If fact it has been cold here. It has been dropping down to about 62 degrees at night. And because we have so many windows there is a pretty good cross breeze in the house. When you are sleeping at 62 you wake up shivering. Which made it feel a little bit cozier this season.
We kicked off December by going to a light parade on Rice street. The event was called Lights on Rice. It was one long parade. We watched for two hours before ditching to eat our favorite Thai Food. Brayden and Even joined us along with one of Gavin's friends from work Zoey. Our favorite float was one with all the Keiki from an elementary school singing Christmas songs. The one with the brightest lights came from Home Depot. They must have put every display they had in their store on their float. I had no idea a semi could look so bright and big. They won the biggest and brightest float for sure.
We also welcome some visitors this season. We have hosted so many people at our place. It's so fun to catch up with all of my friends. First, we had Aubrianna and her brothers Braden and Gavin. The only other Gavin I knew was meeting my Gavin. We all kept getting confused as to what Gavin's we were talking to. We took them around to beaches, waterfalls, and restaurants. One of the days we went snorkeling and I gave them all my fish facts. They loved it. We laughed and laughed in the evening as we played games around our little table. Gavin wasn't loving Hawaii. He ended by spending the night at the airport one night and taking the first flight out the next morning. Poor guy. Wait what.. Gavin?? not mine!
A few days after they left Seth came to visit. He is one of our good friends from Oahu. We love Seth. Gavin had the day off of work so he and Seth went and did a million things on the island. We ended the night at a Christmas party at my friend Eves house. We played games and ate yummy food. We also met a bunch of other young couples. We had no idea that there were so many on the island. We are looking forward to many other get-togethers with them in the future.
We also went to several Christmas Trivia nights at Chicken in a Barrell. This has been our favorite Friday night activity for the past couple of months. Tricia who leads the trivia always posts a hint on her Instagram page. The hint for the game that night was Christmas music. On the way there I was naming every Christmas song and coming up with clever ways to remember the artists' names. One of the artists' names was Perry Como and I told everyone we can remember this because Gavins mission companion was Perry and Braden speaks Spanish and como is a Spanish ward. Another artist was Chuck Berry and I told Gavin and his friend's name is Chuck. Anyways we memorized all these artists on our way to Trivia. We were ready to win!
When the music round came they were playing all the songs we studied. The only problem was that we didn't remember what songs went with each artist. We were scratching our heads trying to remember anything but couldn't. When they shared that the answers were Chuck Berry and Perry Como we got lost in laughter. We could not remember for the life of us and for that we got 2nd place by 1 point.
The rest of the Christmas season was full of Christmas movies and online shopping. When you live in Kauai there isn't even anywhere you can go Christmas shopping. It was fun seeing all our packages arrive throughout the month. We slowly started wrapping them and putting them under our tree. It just added to the magic of Christmas!
Each day from December 1st-December 24th we put a new name of Christ up on a tree. This became the highlight of each day for me. I loved thinking about how the Savior was that word for me that year throughout the day. I also loved seeing them all hanging up each time I was in the kitchen. He is the reason for the season and I love that we can rejoice because of Him!
We went to Gavins work Christmas party at Keoki's paradise which was so fun! We never really treat ourselves to these nice restaurants because they are way out of our budget. But when Marriott is paying for it we go big! Keoki's paradise is a really fun vibe. We had the whole back of the restaurant reserved for the hotel managers. We sat by Gavin's friend Chuck and his wife. The whole place has dim lighting and tiki torches with live music. Very enjoyable setting. We were by far the youngest ones there. I never would have imagined in a million years that we would be at a fancy hotel manager's Christmas party. We played heads-up, bingo, fill-in-the-blank, and a white elephant. It was full packed evening. They handed out awards to the managers that were connected to Disney characters. The head cheff got Remi from Ratatouille. I thought that was perfect. Gavin got Tigger that spelled like Tiger. And was presented to him as Tiger the Lion. Gavin was laughing so hard that they spelled Tigger wrong and called him a lion. While we played games we enjoyed an all you eat buffet with carrot bread, poke, salad, ribs, fish, potatoes, and rice. It was sure yummy! Gavin and I got lucky and won a trip for 2 to go to Maui for three nights! We are staying oceanfront at the Sheraton there! We are so stoked about it! Working for Marriott has its perks! We left full and happy. We are so grateful for Gavin's job. It has provided for us for a whole year. He loves his co-workers and the Sheraton resort. We just feel so blessed and grateful for everything Marriott has done for us. Who knows maybe this will be us for the 30-plus years.
Gavin has been working on a big Christmas Kupuna luncheon for the past month. Chip the general manager asked Gavin to put on a free lunch for anyone on the island 65 and above. Chip said he wanted it to be big and have at least 100 people. Gavin was working hard on trying to get the local churches to get involved but wasn't having a ton of success. I think he had around 50 signs ups few weeks before the event. He decided to call the community center to have them send a notice to all those over the age of 65 in Kauai. Before Gavin knew it his phone was ringing nonstop! He had so many Kupuna call they had to switch the location to the Ballroom. The luncheon ended up being a huge success. I went in to help hand out Leis to them as they walked in. They of course all arrived an hour early so I am glad I showed up early to help. The Kupuna had so much fun. Gavin was the host. He did such a good job. He was standing up front with his Santa hat on. I think someone called him head elf. One lady gave Gavin a beautiful sage lei to show him their gratitude. It was especially nice of the Sheraton to provide lunch for all of them. Gavin was just the coordinator. The elderly were having the time of their life. The event ended with a round of bingo and a sing-a-long to Mele Kalikimaka! Gavin loved planning this event. It was so fun seeing him running around and talking to everyone. He sure thrives doing things like this. The next week we saw he made the front page of the paper!
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