Reflections on Mele Kalikimaka
by Christie Pavey, TCS Latin Teacher
Thirty years ago in an old white house in Indianapolis, there was a little girl with curly blonde hair singing and dancing to her new favorite Christmas song, Mele Kalikimaka (as sung by Bing Crosby). She listened to that song over and over again, constantly turning back her plastic record to hear it yet one more time. She even had fun hand motions—when the palm trees sway. The words sounded really fun to her, and she liked saying them, especially as they seemed to be said in a sing-song way. As a preschooler, she didn’t understand that those fun words were a different language—in fact, the first words she would learn in a language besides English. She also didn’t yet know that later she would go on to learn more languages, even teaching one of them...and that eventually she would move to the place where Mele Kalikimaka was ‘the thing to say’.
As I close out my first semester at TCS, and spend my first Christmas in the land of rainbows, I cannot help but reflect on how I have been led to this place. My first non-Anglophone phrase was Hawaiian, and even from that young age, I was already entranced by palm trees, sand, and the warm, shining sun. Now, God has brought me to the place where palm trees sway, where the sun shines bright, and where everyone says Mele Kalikimaka!
Did you get to see our students perform at our K-12 Christmas Concert and today's Preschool Christmas Program? Watch them below!
Preschool Christmas Program
K-12 Christmas Program
Recent Posts
Tag Cloud
5th grade academics administration all school all-school alumni athletics big island blog christian christmas class of 2018 classical classical christian classical christian education classical-christian-education classical-education college commencement community coram deo debate discipline donation drama educatio education educational philosophy electives elementary exhibition faculty fine art golf tournament graduates graduation hawaii hawaiian history head of school IB program kaiulani kupuna day leadership makahiki may day missions music office outreach parentsArchives
Looking for more? Read our Grand Tour blog and Athletics blog!