Mele Kalikimaka morning!
Catnip sock mouse for Stripes: check.
Bones from Wolfgang’s for Thor: check.
People gifts: still being wrapped.
People food: Don is frying bacon, sauteing mushrooms and baking the John Wayne, a casserole of eggs, peppers and cheese that his mom always served on Christmas. Next in the oven goes the cake, made with the last of this year’s frozen mangoes, for our neighbor Francois, who helps guard our tree against poachers.
It’s our first Christmas in Hawaii with our son Rory and his wife Kaitlin. The last time we were together on this day was in 2009 in California, and we drove to Huntington Beach with Don’s siblings and their children for the traditional Wallace plunge in the frigid shorebreak, filling the crisp, kelpy air with ho-ho-hos and happy screams.
Today we’ll paddle out to Suis, past the withered Christmas trees that were stuck on the reef last year and, if tradition holds, will soon be replaced by fresh ones.
Who started this? I asked the Tonggs Gang.
“I’m pretty sure the group of bachelors who rented the old Mirikitani house at the end of Kalakaua (aka ‘Bachelors Paradise’) first did it sometime in the mid to late 1960s,” Warren Ono wrote in an email.
Donny Mailer disagreed. “Word has it that Neal McHenry and Randy Steiner around ’61 or ’62 were the first.”
McHenry, an earlier Tonggs surfer whom I haven’t met, responded to my query.
“Yes. My family and I were living in the beach house next to Harrison Thurston’s. (After) Christmas, people were just throwing their trees in the trash. So one night my friend Randy Steiner and I decided to tow all of them onto the reef at Suicides at low tide and we lit them up. A huge bonfire. It was great. Of course the condos called the cops. When they got there they (said), ‘No problem, it’s in the ocean.’ Anyway, we saved a really big one and lashed it with wire to the metal pilings for everyone to enjoy.”
Each year thereafter, McHenry and Steiner put a Christmas tree on the reef, and after they moved on they “made sure someone of the Tonggs gang” would continue. There have been lapses.
“Let’s see if there will be one this year,” McHenry wrote.
THE GANG shared other memories of Christmas at Tonggs.
“It was always glassy every single Christmas morning. The waves might not have been up, but it was always beautiful. Every Christmas without fail,” wrote Alika Neves, whose family lived on the waterfront a few doors down the sea wall from the Thurstons and McHenrys.
On such a glassy, 4- to 5-foot Christmas Day at Suis, Warren wrote, he had one of his best and worst sessions ever.
“I had just finished glassing my new board the day before. It was a clear (no color) board. I had a few good waves and then wiped out. These were the days before leashes, and I lost the board. The early morning sun reflecting off the water made it impossible for me to see it.”
After that, he tinted his boards bright orange or red.
Don and I gave Rory a clear longboard when he and Kaitlin moved to Honolulu last year to spend a year. It’ll stay here when they move back to New York next month.
We’re trying not to think about that.
Lately, Rory has been coming by the house whenever one of us takes a staycation day.
After a recent four days together, “That was my Christmas gift,” Don said.
They hung out, read and discussed history books, snacked, went for walks around Diamond Head when there was a gap in the rain. Don napped while Rory played Bach.
Today, for the last time this season, we’ll play and sing Christmas carols, enjoying Kaitlin’s rollicking soprano and Rory’s lusty baritone right here and now, instead of over Facetime, with its jarring lapses.
The two of them bought and delivered our beautiful, fragrant Christmas tree. After the holidays, maybe they’ll use Rory’s longboard to paddle it out and lash it to the pilings on the reef.
“In the Lineup” features Hawaii’s oceangoers and their regular hangouts, from the beach to the deep blue sea. Reach Mindy Pennybacker at mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4772.
