My husband and I got married on December 7, 1991, which was the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. We picked a December wedding date because we love the Christmas season and felt what better way to celebrate it then by taking pictures of a sunset and sending them out as our Christmas photo cards to all our family and friends.
When we got to Hawaii the weather was beautiful (of course), the air smelled like flowers and there was a warm breeze. Palm trees were decorated with Christmas tree lights. There were beautiful parrots flying loose in the lobby of our hotel along with Santa Claus ringing his bell with one of his elves and “Mele Kalikimaka,” the Hawaiian Christmas song, was playing everywhere. Seeing Santa in this environment was a strange sight for us, as we always associated Father Christmas with cold weather and there he was in a tropical and sunny setting.
We were in Honolulu, so our first stop was to visit Pearl Harbor and because of the anniversary, there were many special ceremonies going on, making the visit a very emotional experience. After spending a few days in Honolulu, we went to Kauai, nick named the “Garden Isle” because of its endless beauty. We took a helicopter tour to see the beautiful cascading waterfalls, canyons, and lush green mountains. Then we were off to Maui for the remainder of our honeymoon. Maui was also beautiful. We went whale watching and saw a Humpback whale breech right in front of our boat; it was truly amazing! We also visited many art galleries and shops.
One of our favorite places in Maui was when we went to Haleakala Crater to see a sunset, and it is there that we took the most beautiful sunset photo ever, which later became the cover for our first Christmas photo cards as newlyweds. We went with a tour group from our hotel. The tour took us all the way to the top of the summit of this inactive volcano. It took almost three hours to get up there by bus. We brought the blankets from our bed as people warned us it would be very cold up there…and they weren’t kidding! On the way down from the summit there was a lodge we stopped in. It was called Kula Lodge and there I bought a coffee mug. I still have that mug and to this day. Every time I have coffee in it, I think of that beautiful sunset and that wonderful Hawaiian experience.