In the Land of Cocktails

Tikifying Your Holidays

Posted by Kari Hendler on December 14th, 2010

The lyrics to that Christ­mas song tell us “it’s the most won­der­ful time of the year.”  But, for Tikiphiles, IS it?  Let’s face it, by Decem­ber, The Huk­i­lau and Tiki Oasis are months away, and although some of you may be lucky enough to live in a year-round warm cli­mate, for most it’s prob­a­bly too cold out­side for a luau, and you’ve packed away your aloha shirts for the win­ter.  Yes, it’s hard to feel very Tiki when you’re wear­ing ther­mal underwear.

But I’m going to shake things up a bit for you.  It’s time to Tik­ify your hol­i­days by bring­ing that happy state of mind we love into the two most unbudg­ingly tra­di­tional hol­i­days we know:  Christ­mas and Hanukkah.

I am not going to go into why some peo­ple are so afraid of change, but they are.  Espe­cially when it comes to Christ­mas.  One year, I made the mis­take of try­ing to jazz up a relative’s Pills­bury Pigs In A Blan­ket recipe, think­ing it would delight her fam­ily.  My rela­tion­ship with her has not been the same since.  I might as well have defaced her lawn nativ­ity set!  (I’ll be telling you how to do that later in this arti­cle.)  Any­way, that silly exam­ple is pre­cisely WHY you need to inject your Tik­i­fy­ing in a most sub­tle and lovely way, so as not to trau­ma­tize fam­ily mem­bers, who may not share as deeply in your pop-Polynesian pas­sion.  You really don’t want to hear your chil­dren sob­bing, “Daddy ruined Christ­mas!” on Decem­ber 25th.  You’ll be pay­ing for their ther­apy for years.

Now, I’m not say­ing that there isn’t plenty of charm in the time-tested win­ter cel­e­bra­tions.   I love eggnog, Christ­mas trees and twinkly lights.  I even like snow, when I don’t have to live in it.  But no one enjoys hear­ing “Santa Baby” six hun­dred times, and nobody likes fruit­cake.  NOBODY.  But… what if that fruit­cake was made with trop­i­cal fruit?  And what if you mixed some Don Ho-Ho-Ho into your hol­i­day music playlist?  By the way, did you know, those lit­tle cock­tail umbrel­las look really pretty on the tree?  Well, they do. When I sent a mass email out to my friends in the Tiki com­mu­nity, a re-occurring sug­ges­tion came back:  “How about putting Santa hats on all your Tikis?” Okay, that’s a good start.  You can even find mini Santa hats to stick on top of your mugs or smaller carv­ings.  Noth­ing I have men­tioned so far should cause famil­ial anni­hi­la­tion.  And if no fam­ily mem­ber flinches at these sub­tle Tiki touches, well… care to push the prover­bial enve­lope a bit further?

Let’s start with the Christ­mas tree.  If your fam­ily really likes hang­ing all the old orna­ments, let them.  Orna­ments can be highly sen­ti­men­tal things and let’s not mess with emo­tions.  But, how about get­ting a sec­ond tree that is des­ig­nated for Tiki great­ness?  You know all those Tiki pen­dant neck­laces you’ve bought?  (Come on!  You KNOW you own at least twenty-two!)  Wouldn’t they look great hang­ing as orna­ments on your Tiki tree?  I’ve been col­lect­ing those lit­tle fake lava Tiki key­chains and mag­nets and turn­ing those into tree orna­ments.  Any­thing with an island feel­ing will work.  Or, you can go in a more “yo-ho” direc­tion and find mini pirate flags to drape on the branches.  Seashells, sou­venirs from Hawaii, silk leis, a small, framed photo of Donn Beach… just fling it all on!  And your tree doesn’t have to be a tra­di­tional pine tree.  You can buy a palm tree (real or fake) and use that instead.  Around the base of the tree, use a grass skirt instead of an ordi­nary tree skirt.  Or go buy some Hawaiian-print fab­ric and wrap that around the tree stand.

Music plays a big part in get­ting us in a hol­i­day mood.  But noth­ing kills that mood faster than a playlist full of embar­rass­ing nov­elty Christ­mas songs and weepy tunes about how some trucker spent his hol­i­day on the big lonely high­way.   My friends, Jason and Staci (“The TikiPugs”) Smith, have one of the most exten­sive music col­lec­tions I’ve ever seen.  To help keep you get started, Jason com­piled the fol­low­ing “must have” Tiki-holiday music list for all of you. (Most of these cds can be pur­chased on Amazon.com)

1)    Willie K – Willie Kaliki­maka
2)    Hapa — Hol­i­days
3)    Hawai­ian Slack Key Christ­mas
4)    Arthur Lyman – With a Christ­mas Vibe
5)    Petty Booka – Christ­mas Every­where
6)    Ven­tures – Christ­mas Joy
7)    Blue Hawai­ians – Christ­mas On Big Island
8)    Esquivel – Merry Xmas From the Space-Age Bach­e­lor Pad
9)    Ulti­mate Christ­mas Cock­tails – Box Set
10)    Hi-Fidelity Hol­i­day
11)    Wave Ben­ders – Surfin’ Christ­mas
And my addi­tion to this list,
12) The Don Ho Christ­mas Album

One of my absolute favorite things about Christ­mas is hol­i­day “lawn trash­ing.”  For some peo­ple, dec­o­rat­ing the patch of turf in front of their home is as impor­tant as what they’ve got going on inside.  I love dri­ving around neigh­bor­hoods and see­ing the sur­real com­bi­na­tion of plas­tic nativ­ity sets mixed with ply­wood Snoopy cutouts and inflat­able pen­guins.  What does it all mean?  I don’t know!  But I think you can do bet­ter.  Okay, let’s pre­tend the Vir­gin Birth hap­pened in Oahu.  (I think Mary would have enjoyed it more.)  Take your lawn nativ­ity set and put grass skirts and leis on all the play­ers.  Swap out the Three Wise Men for three Home Depot qual­ity Tikis.  (I would NOT rec­om­mend you put any­thing of value, like your carved wood Tikis, on your front lawn.)  Have the Three Wise Tikis bear gifts of rum bot­tles (filled with col­ored water).  Sur­round the scene with fake light-up palm trees.  (And, by the way, if you own one of those lit­tle man­tel­piece nativ­i­ties, you can Tik­ify it up the same way, only using smaller props.)

“But what about Hanukkah?” you say.  “Surely a hol­i­day com­prised of drei­del games, songs in a minor key and latkes can’t be Tik­i­fied!”  Try me.  Take a good look at your Tiki mug col­lec­tion.  Pick nine of your favorites, fill them with sand and put one Hanukkah can­dle in each.  You’ve now cre­ated a Tiki menorah!  

My favorite Hanukkah find last year was a bot­tle stop­per with an attached meno­rah.  I stuck that into my bot­tle of Apple­ton Spe­cial Reserve and put it on my man­tle.  Maybe it was the reli­gious over­tones, but I swear that rum tasted even bet­ter after that.   Serve your latkes with trop­i­cal jams instead of apple­sauce.  Mac­a­roon cook­ies are a sta­ple of Jew­ish desserts, and…aloha!  They’re made of coconut!  As for music, the most Tik­i­brew rock­ers around are Meshugga Beach Party.   Get their cds and play them while you sip your Mogen David.

A big part of the hol­i­days revolves around food.  Okay, there’s that whole Baby Jesus angle, but hol­i­day food rates higher for a lot of us.  Even the ancient Hawai­ians were hip to this.  Before the mis­sion­ar­ies dropped anchor (among other things) onto their islands, the Hawai­ians had their own win­ter cel­e­bra­tion, hon­or­ing the earth and its abun­dance, called “Makahiki.”  They cel­e­brated by feast­ing, non­stop, for four months.  Four months!  (Actu­ally, come to think about it, that’s not too far removed from what we do now — start eat­ing at Thanks­giv­ing and not stop­ping until we inhale the last Peep at Easter.)

Instead of blath­er­ing on about recipes, I’m just going to give you some tips and leave you to run with them.  First of all, if you don’t already own a good Hawai­ian cook­book, get one.  That will inspire you more than any­thing.  I tend to get my best ideas from vin­tage Hawai­ian cook­books because they seem to lean more towards the pu-pu plat­ter cui­sine favored by the great Tiki restau­rants of long ago.  Keep cream of coconut, canned pineap­ple, macadamia nuts and trop­i­cal jams and syrups around to add to your cook­ing.  Don’t be afraid to intro­duce one or two Hawai­ian dishes along­side your tra­di­tional ones.  Chicken Long Rice and yams mashed with pineap­ple won’t be too weird for any fam­ily mem­ber to try.  Oys­ter stew is a tra­di­tional Christ­mas dish, so why not swap it out with Trader Vic’s oyster-based “Bongo Bongo” soup?  Otto and Baby Doe Von Stro­heim like to Tiki up their Christ­mas din­ing by mak­ing pineap­ple upside-down cake with a hot but­tered rum chaser.  Eggnog already has rum in it, but replac­ing that with coconut rum will add a fun twist.  Peruse Beach­bum Berry’s books for some won­der­ful hot Tiki drink recipes.  By the way, have you ever tried a Trader Vic’s “Hot Rum Cow”?   It’s been on their menu for­ever.  See?  Milk plus rum = Tiki… and cozy, cozy, cozy.

Dear read­ers, this arti­cle is not meant to ruf­fle any feath­ers.  I’m part Nor­we­gian and believe me, if my mother didn’t make her Christ­mas “Fiske­boller” every year, there would be “helvete”to pay.  I’m not say­ing you should aban­don any of the tra­di­tions you like, but there’s some­thing really won­der­ful about cre­at­ing some new ones that reflect who you are now.  And… by writ­ing this arti­cle, it is not my inten­tion to offend any of you who are reli­giously obser­vant.  This arti­cle is not meant for you, and you know it.  So no hate mail, please.  There is no room for hate in Tiki.   What there IS room for is shar­ing, cre­ativ­ity and fun.

…and I wish you all a Hau’oli Makahiki Hou (Happy New Year)!

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Kari Hendler is a tele­vi­sion script super­vi­sor, pho­tog­ra­pher and writer, who thinks that life is too short, so you really need to cel­e­brate everything.

Arti­cle reprinted cour­tesy of Tiki Mag­a­zine where Kari is a reg­u­lar contributor.