One of my favorite Christmas songs is still "Mele Kalikimaka." While I have a warm place in my heart for Johnny Mathis' "Winter Wonderland" and Ella Fitzgerald's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" gives me a warm fuzzy, neither of them can touch the wonder of Bing Crosby's mannered tones crooning about the joys of Christmas in an island wonderland.

Even so, I have to wonder about the legitimacy of the song. After all, "Mele Kalikimaka" became popular back in the days when Tiki restaurants were baking up syrup-encrusted canned ham and trying to pass it off as native cuisine. While it's hardly surprising that Crosby and company would want to tap into the South Pacific mania that swept the country in the 1950's, the song itself isn't particularly Hawaiian, and the title sounds like something off the drink menu in a Chinese restaurant.

After a little research, I discovered that, oddly enough, "Mele Kalikimaka" actually means exactly what Bing said it meant. Basically, it is an attempt to phonetically copy the words "Merry Christmas" into a form that more comfortably rolls off the Hawaiian tongue. Of course, following the same logic, Happy Thanksgiving might be translated into "Hape Takigawa'a," Happy Easter into "Hape Ikkitaka," and "supply-side economics" into "sapipil sa'a ekanamakika."

Cynicism aside, Hawaii has actually developed a complete Christmas mythology. The island Santa Claus, a fat guy in bare feet, arrives in a magic, red outrigger canoe and wears aloha shirts accessorized with leis. The traditional Christmas feast involves roasted pork and fruitcake, although it has been enhanced with sushi and tamales in recent years. Finally, everybody sings Christmas carols to the accompaniment of ukeleles and guitars while lounging about in Santa hats and bikinis.

This isn't to say that Hawaii doesn't have a real, home-grown winter religious festival. Traditionally, Makahiki was a period of about four months, lasting from October through February, during which everybody stopped working. The community would perform religious ceremonies of thanksgiving, set food-laden canoes adrift in the ocean, and generally have a good time. Wars were not permitted, and the entire society would honor Lono, their fertility god.

Actually, come to think of it, Makahiki seems to be a great holiday. I wonder what the English translation would sound like!