I hope you are well. Our family is gearing up for Christmas. If you celebrate Christmas or not, I wish you the best. I hope you have the warmest Holiday celebration.

I wanted to share a Christmas tale with you. One of the biggest joys I've ever had, is to experience the Holidays with our daughter. Her name is Alicia Kamalei Grande, but we call her Kamalei most of the time.

Kamalei means "beloved child" in Hawaiian. She  always keeps me on my toes. And the following story shows you what I'm talking about.

If you have kids, grand kids, step kids, nieces, nephews, neighborhood kids, or ever spent time with little ones at Christmas, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about! 

When she was 4 we went to my friend Chico's house for a Christmas Party. We told her that Santa himself might be there. My good friend Taly, had agreed to be the "Big Guy" for the party.

As is the case in Hawaii, whenever you enter someone's house, you remove your slippers (slippahs) or shoes. Because of the set up of the house, we put the shoes on the back porch (lanai).

In the middle of the party, there was a knock at the front door.  Santa arrived, and Kama was speechless. She was very timid at first, but after several other kids got on Santa's lap and told him what they wanted, she finally got in line. She was last in line.

She hopped on Santa's lap and told him what was on her list.

He asked her if she had been a good girl...She just looked at him and smiled. She just smiled and giggled. But not a word came out of her mouth. Nothing.

After a few seconds, Santa told her he was sure, she was a good girl. He put her down.

"I need to get back to the North Pole" he announced  "Merry Christmas everybody....Merry Christmas....Ho Ho Ho!"

She gave him a big hug and ran up to me. He then picked up his sack and opened the front door and left....

I said "Kama, you didn't tell Santa you were a good girl.."

"Dad" she explained, "I didn't want to say yes...and I didn't want to say no..."

Well, I thought, pretty smart kid...Very smart kid!