There are things that I love, really love, hate, and really hate about living in Hawaii. This one falls under the "really love" category. I absolutely love Hawaiian style graduation parties. Now, when I graduated from highschool, the only real difference I noticed was my dad added, "and pay your tuition on time" to his constant mantra of, "anything less than an A is unacceptable". When I graduated from college, I threw myself a party with hamburgers, chips, and two-liters of rootbeer and I received an alarm clock and a picture frame as gifts. I thought this was pretty standard.
Not in Hawaii.
A grad party in Hawaii requires several pick-up truck loads of food with no less than five meat-related main dishes, at least three salads containing macaroni and absolutely NO grass skirt trimming around the tables or cylindrically symmetric, tissue paper pineapple center pieces.
Families honestly spend thousands and thousands of dollars on these parties and wouldn't dream of combining, say, all the kids from one highschool or two best friends' parties. Each party is fully decked out in towering floral and balloon arrangements, center pieces that are actually large party favors containing items reflecting the interests of the grad, live bands with plenty of ukuleles, and enough food to sustain a small, third-world country for a month.
All of June and July is grad party season and I haven't cooked on a Saturday night in a long time. Last weekend we went to the party of a grad we didn't even know, but his aunties invited us so we happily went. We walked in and the happy grad kissed me on the cheek and slapped my husband on the back and it was party time. The family of the grad spends the evening, cooking, serving, cleaning, laughing loudly, asking everyone if they've gotten enough to eat, and pressing more food on them regardless of the answer.
I'm afraid I've been ruined forever. Croissant sandwiches, nut cups and chalky mints wrapped in netting will never satisfy me now.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Let's Party, Hawaiian Style!
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7 comments:
Hahaha, I want to say something, but I will be PC and not mention it.
But I will say that Hawaiians and other Polynesians will find any excuse to party, so I'm not surprised that graduation is a huge party.
I hope that my kids don't see this. Our idea of a graduation party is taking the whole family out to dinner at the Cattle Company or I think we went to the Sourdough Mining Company when Aaron graduated. It wasn't thousands of dollars, but was pretty spendy for our budget!
haha, un-PC like, that's why they invented the mumu? Most people have weight problems during the Holidays, I think I will struggle during the summer now too, and all year long, come to think of it.
"Cattle Company" sounds like a great name for a Hawaiian grad party. haha. That's the Alaskan version of Black Angus, right? Somehow Alaskan restaurant names sound more like industrial or ag companies than ones that serve food.
It's a pretty good name for the spectacle we always caused when we would herd all of our 7 children and their hanger-ons into the restaurant!!
I'm thinking of opening a new restaurant here in Alaska called "The Trough" Oh wait there's already a Golden Coral Buffet dang it.
The Trough is a pretty good name. Too bad there isn't a big enough market to support it and the Golden Corral!!
Hey, I was going to ask you why I'm not listed as one of your friends and then I noticed I was! Thanks!!
We are psychic i mean psycho
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