The dining room table is covered with all the prizes: Vienna sausage cans tied with ribbon, gift bags of Lion Coffee, DVD sets of Korean soap operas. On the floor of the living room, all the paper plates and napkins and takeout containers are piled up, ready to go. The Santa suit is spread on the back of the couch to air out — sometimes the uncles complain that it stinks.
It’s all in anticipation of the 48th annual Miyashiro family Christmas Eve party, a gathering like so many family parties in the islands but as unique as each one, too.
Eleanor Shiroma, 81, got it started. She’s one of the nine Miyashiro siblings who grew up in Pepeekeo on the Big Island. In 1968 she and her husband and their three daughters had just moved back to Hawaii after five years in California. Those had been lonely, homesick years. Her husband’s co-workers would invite them to Christmas parties, but they’d get to the house, see people inside they didn’t know eating stuff they didn’t recognize, feel even more homesick, turn around and leave.
When they moved back to Hawaii, Shiroma had a plan. She told her siblings that instead of exchanging gifts, they should plan a Christmas Eve party with games and prizes, a visit from Santa, lots of food. Shiroma was determined to have the family Christmas gatherings that she had missed so much.
At first each sibling took turns hosting the party at home. As babies were born and families grew, the party was moved to rented halls. The last three years it was at the Saint Louis Alumni Clubhouse. Now it’s about 75 people spanning four generations, including five surviving Miyashiro siblings.
“All the aunties get there early, so if you come on time, you feel like you’re late,” said Lee Choy, Shiroma’s youngest daughter.
The party planners pick the menu, which changes each year. The games include old-time favorites like trying to eat a powdered doughnut hanging by a string, and elaborate themes like Casino Night. “We used to do musical chairs, but as the aunties got older, it got too dangerous,” said Karleen Keaney, Shiroma’s eldest daughter.
Along with the Vienna sausages, there have been amazing prizes over the years, like a flat-screen TV and trips to Las Vegas.
And the end of the night, a thick binder with lists and instructions gets passed to the cousin who will plan the next year’s party. Along with the binder goes the pinata stick and the Santa suit. Every year, one of the uncles is picked to play Santa, and the older kids try to guess who it is by his slippers.
There was one year, though, when Santa arrived and he wasn’t any of the uncles.
“Out of the blue, this Santa comes in the house,” Shiroma said. “He said, ‘Ho ho ho!’”
“He came in, acted really confident like he was supposed to be there,” Choy said. “I just remember all the adults being so confused.”
“Till today we don’t know who he was,” Shiroma said.
The story has become another family treasure, like the musty Santa suit and the big binder and the stories of long-ago Pepeekeo childhoods that are part of the Miyashiro Christmas tradition.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
