This Christmas was the first Christmas away from family. At first I moped and felt bad for myself, but then someone at work told me you have to really make an effort to make it Christmas. So, with less than a week until Christmas I kicked it into high gear.
One of the benefits of waiting so long was that everything went on sale! I snagged an artificial tree for 50% off at Target and the twinkling lights were 30% off. It was so funny, there were two boxes of this 7ft Norfolk pine left and three of us staring at the two boxes. So I let my East coast nature take over and I just reached over and grabbed a boxes, leaving my much politer Hawaiian shoppers to duke it out over the last box (I later saw one of the ladies wistfully looking at my cart in another section of the store...).
I came home and put together a tree. First of all - this is my first artificial tree and I didn't realize that in order to get it all full you had to fluff each branch. So when I pulled it out of the box and it was looking all spare, my initial reaction was..."This doesn't look ANYTHING like the picture!" After a lot of fluffing, my canvas was ready:
THIS IS ACTUALLY ONLY HALF FLUFFED :) CAN YOU SEE THE HALFWAY MARK???
Next, the decor...once I realized that this was my chance to make the Christmas tree like I've always wanted, I got pretty excited to take on the project. Growing up in my family we had a tradition of getting ornaments that marked the year and then we'd put our names and the year on them. So the Wong Christmas tree has always been a hodgepodge of Disney ornaments, Hawaii ornaments, etc (which makes unpacking the ornaments really fun because it brings back all the memories).
But for my own first tree I wanted it to be PRETTY :) I went to the local craft store and got two themes - traditional dark red/green items and an untraditional pink/silver motif. I was totally surprised when Chris voted for the pink.
HERE'S THE TREE!
Of course I didn't just do a tree, but I did make an effort to decorate the living room. One of the hard things about being in Hawaii is that I am not about to go and spend a ridiculous amount of money on ornaments and decor items that will not be used again if we move (which is hopefully soon). So the challenge was to keep it cheap and keep it disposable.
I have to do a close up of the chains, but I made the chains out of this really pretty Sizzix die and then also made coordinating paper lanterns with a Quickutz die. The lantern die was not something I'd normally use, but when it went on sale for 50% I used it as an arts & crafts project with my kids...it turned out so well that I ended up making some for the house! I also decided I wanted to do a haku lei...not that I've ever made one before. A haku lei is a braided/plaited lei...all the really gorgeous flower lei that is traditionally seen on women's heads are haku lei.
LIVING ROOM DECOR
Of course since the artificial tree doesn't smell anything like a real tree I got some candles that smell like Christmas trees. Don't tell the landlord though...we technically aren't supposed to burn candles.
HAKU LEI #1 & MY CHRISTMAS TREE SCENTED CANDLE
Another benefit to staying in Hawaii for the holiday was that I wrapped all the packages in coordinating black and white wrapping paper. Most of the packages contained wrapped presents inside, so really we had to unwrap things twice...but it ended up being kind of nice because otherwise the gift wrapping would have been over way to quickly with just the two of us.
THE TREE AND MY COLOR THEMED PRESENTS
DID YOU NOTICE THE "K" & "C" ORNAMENTS?
The K & C ornaments are really the only ornaments on the tree :) Although technically there is one small glass, hand painted turtle ornament too. So when all is said and done, including the Christmas tree I actually stayed under my budget ($200) for my first Hawaiian Christmas!
Since it was just the two of us and I had stayed up late cleaning the living room, Chris and I didn't end up opening our presents until the afternoon.
SANTA BROUGHT CHRIS A STOCKING...
One of the funnier moments in opening our Christmas gift was opening the box from my family:
We didn't REALLY get a box of blood, but it was pretty funny to open up my wrapped package and find it.
Later in the day I Skyped with my family back in Massachusetts. My brother set up a really cute "family picture" of the Wong family for Christmas:
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE WONGS!
I also procrastinated mightily on a Christmas card. Chris and I didn't go anywhere exciting this year, so for our Christmas pictures we kept it local and just walked out into the backyard. I'm wearing my second haku lei made with poinsettias.
HAWAIIAN PARADISE PARK IN KEAAU, HAWAII
MELE KALIKIMAKA AND HAU'OLI MAKAHIKI HOU!
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