Christmas in Hawaii in the islands celebrate the Christmas traditions of Hawaii in their own unique ways, which may be religious or plainly secular. Even Santa Claus (Hawaiian: Kanakaloka) himself is not wearing his corporate red and white suit, but has swapped it for flowery Hawaiian clothes. Christmas wreaths are made from the poinsettia plant. The phrase "Mele Kalikimaka" can be translated from Hawaiian to mean "Merry Christmas". It is also a Hawaiian themed Christmas song composed by Robert Alex Anderson in 1949. The phrase is borrowed directly from English, but, since Hawaiian has a different phonological system (in particular, Hawaiian does not
Plant Memorial December 4, 1924. Post-1949, the Plant Memorial was vandalized. There is some debate about the origins of the Plant Memorial defacement. Some say the National Red Guards in the 1960s came in an act of xenophobia to tear down what they considered to be an honor to a foreigner. The solid granite obelisk proved difficult to raze entirely and the Red Guard expressed their sentiments by chiseling out every character and letter in the inscriptions. Others have reported the defacement came during the Land Reform Movement in the 1950s. In either case, Xintan, a Chinese community of river pilots and