The cats are enjoying their holiday catnip, along with an extra taste of canned food, always a treat.

And here are a few things from the ghost of Christmas past that you may enjoy.

First, enjoy a quick listen to my Kaaawa Christmas poem, written in 2002 and last revised when Leo was still with us and our census was at 9 cats.

Several years ago (2005), our friends down the street here in Kaaawa celebrated Christmas by preparing an imu and cooking up a feast.

I tried to capture the process, from the pre-dawn fire to the late afternoon opening of the imu. Click on that link and follow along.

Then, back to another era.

On Christmas Day, 1948, the Waikiki Surf Club held its annual 6-mile paddle board race from Waikiki Beach out around the Diamond Head buoy and back.

Click on the photo to see more of that long-ago Christmas day.

Digging further back…In December 1942, University of Hawaii Professor Carey D. Miller sent a 6-page letter to friends with a month-by-month account of what it had been like in Honolulu after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the US entry into WWII.

For example, December 1941:

“Christmas comes and goes, dinner parties are called off and many work all day long. Each night we gather in our little blackout room and listen anxiously to the war news.”

And from December 1942:

December 1942: “Haru, my 64 year old masseur, who for almost 20 years has rubbed the cricks out of my tired shoulders and soothed my headaches with her strong and supple fingers has expressed the feelings of many of us when she says, ‘I tink God verry sorry see his children fight. Erry morning I say, Aloha God, please, war pau.’ “

Read Miller’s 1942 letter here.

Miller wrote another Christmas letter to friends in December 1944. In it, she expressed thanks for a number of things, and her list tells you an awful lot about the times.

• “…a good job and sufficient health and energy to carry on.”

• “…a comfortable home of our own. The housing situation is so acute in Honolulu that we feel almost guilty to have a spare room, even though it is frequently used by newcomers and visitors.”

• “…space to raise most of our own fruits and vegetables which give us a better diet and means jut that much less food to be shipped in.”

• “…the (household) help that we have….A girl from one of the other Islands who is attending business school is with us for the second year. She prepares the evening meal and washes the dishes. Her repertoire is limited, but she really does very well.”

• “And we have a yard man!”

• “…it has not been necessary to restore the black out. We can now turn on any kind of lights anywhere, any time! (Except, of course, during an air raid alarm).”

• “…I am thankful for good musical programs whether from regular records or rebroadcasts of such programs as the N.B.C. symphony concerts.”

• “…the event which will evoke the greatest thankfulness will be the end of the war.”

And so it goes on this Christmas morning 67 years later.

Veterans Day will be an annual reminder.

A click on the photo and you’ll see all the day’s pictures.

Former Chief of Police Gabrielson used the phrase, “a stiff prick has no conscience.”

The chief’s description came in the 1940s when I was president of the Keys and Whistles organization of Reserve Police Officers. One of our leading surfboard paddlers had overstayed his leave from police duties when he was setting a record for chaining the islands on a surfboard. In the water sports world, the feat was unusual.

Because of his being stranded at Upolu Point on the Big Island waiting for the weather to clear, he missed his duty assignment. The paddler, a good police officer, was fired by the chief for his negligence to duty. At the time, I headed up the Hawaii Surfing Association and Keys & Whistles, and appealed to the chief on his behalf. My appeal was immediately acknowledged with the words as described above. That was final.

The chief was doing his job and I can only assume he had used the expression on previous occasions. It was a shock to me, though.

I remember Gene “Tarzan” Smith paddling the island chain just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, just about the time the police reserve program was started. But I don’t think my dad was in that first group of reserve officers. I’ll have to see if my mother recalls. If the unnamed officer wasn’t Tarzan Smith, who was it? Any ideas?