Mele Kalikimaka from the Korsmeyers and Dupees!

For every single year of my life, my family has celebrated Christmas in Pittsburgh. My mom's side of the family gathers at my Grandmother's house in the South Hills, traveling from Hawaii, California, and the North Hills to be together. This has always seemed a little backwards to me - on the one hand, it makes sense that we'd spend Christmas in a state where it snows, but since we haven't had snow at the end of December since I was a kid, having my cousins leave Oahu and San Mateo for vacation isn't especially vacation-like.

This year, we decided to swtich things up: the Dupees and Korsmeyers headed to Kona, Hawaii!

The shortest travel time was a forty-five minute flight taken by my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin who live on Oahu. The longest travel time was about twenty-five hours, belonging to yours truly; it turns out Hawaii and Scotland are on opposite sides of the planet.

I chased the sun on the longest Saturday of my life as I ran from flight to flight. A bus to the airport at four in the morning, an hour flight to London Heathrow, layover, an eleven-hour flight to LAX, layover, a six-hour flight to Kona. As my brother said, it sounds miserable. But one thing made it bearable: a Christmas miracle!

The movie "Where'd You Go Bernadette", white wine, a beef meal, and my propped up feet

It turns out my seat on the eleven-hour flight was double-booked, so when I found it, another woman was sitting there. We had the same seat, 25G, listed on our boarding passes. Soon the problem was resolved - by letting the other woman keep her seat and upgrading me to the club cabin!

It was the height of luxury. I'm sure I will never experience anything like it again. I sat down and was immediately offered champagne, a menu, and a cute travel bag (containing socks, a sleeping mask, moisturizer, lip balm, a toothbrush, and toothpaste). And the hot towels - a small detail, but it felt amazing on my face, like an in-flight spa. My seat could be turned into a full bed, so while I had a four-course dinner and cocktails, I was also able to sleep for a good six hours. I would probably faint if I knew how much those seats cost. It was my first and likely last time flying outside of economy, and I will treasure the memory always.

I landed in Kona just before ten o'clock at night, and was chauffeured to Kona Costal Resort by my Aunt and Uncle. Everyone else was exhausted from traveling, so we saw each other and said hello at breakfast the next day. I adjusted to resort life immediately: pina coladas by the pool, buying fruit at the local farmers' market, and soaking in the sun as much as possible. The sun won't show up in Scotland until the Spring, and I told my family that if I could snatch it and pack it in my suitcase, I would leave the world in the dark until I made it back to Edinburgh just to bring it with me.

We are a board game family, mostly thanks to my oldest brother, who always finds new games for us to try out. We play Codenames, One Night Werewolf, Settlers of Catan, and countless games of U-Dog. It gets competitive and ruthless, but somehow we still managed to remember the meaning of Christmas.

Christmas Day itself was very relaxed. We had breakfast together and did a white elephant gift exchange of everyones' favorite books, and my mom got everyone a tropical-themed ornament. We had a beautiful scenic drive to dinner, which was at a restaurant with great service and all local foods. I ate the Opakapaka fish, which came with prawns (fresh-water shrimp) with the heads still attached. My brother, at the encouragement of our aunt, ate one of the prawn's heads. Later, when I tried to explain to our sister that he did this because the head is supposed to be the best part, she said, "Annie, he literally learned what a prawn is yesterday. I do not trust him on this." A fair point. I did not eat the head of the other prawn because the eyes freaked me out, and the whole thing was forgotten once the flourless chocolate cake was brought out.

Photo by Pierle + Blum Photography

There were a lot of wonderful moments during our week in Hawaii, including a family photoshoot on the beach, making gecko keychains with my cousin, seeing the latest Star Wars movie together, and spending time with all my family members. And of course, my favorite thing was spending time with my five-month-old niece! I went with her to the pool, sang songs to her, threw her in the air (which she loves), and danced ridiculously for her at the airport when she was exhausted from traveling. She is adorable and wiggly, and loves the sound of water but did not like the tide at the beach. She constantly looks like she's appraising what's happening around her and is a little confused by things, but will reserve her judgement for a later time. I hadn't seen her since she was born, so I took every moment I could to hang with her.

Dupees & Korsmeyers by Pierle + Blum Photography

Every day was a good day, but there were two experiences I will remember for the rest of my life. The first was on Monday, when we snorkeled with dolphins!

The company we went with, Hawaii Sea Quest, finds the dolphins in their natural habitat. Dolphins are nocturnal, so we boarded a boat in the morning to find them as they returned to the coast to sleep. As they are voluntary breathers, half their brain sleeps at a time so they can always remember to breathe. That means they tend to swim in pairs, one with their left eye open and one with their right eye open, to circle up to the surface every once in a while to take a breath.

Snorkel gear at the ready, we jumped in as soon as we spotted them. There were whole pods of both spotted dolphins and spinner dolphins, and they got pretty close to us. We were instructed not to touch them, because sea mammals are coated in a membrane to keep them safe. They are covered in ocean bacteria, and we are covered in land bacteria, so disrupting their membrane can really hurt them. It was enough just to be near them, to watch them swim up from the depths and spin up out of the ocean. At one point, my sister had to pull her hands back to avoid touching a dolphin that swam right in front of her! And we could hear their high-pitched chirps to each other as they moved around.

On Friday, we returned to Hawaii Sea Quest in the evening; this time, we went to see manta rays.

Once we found a suitable spot, our group slipped into the water in our wetsuits and gathered around a long raft. We held onto the raft with our hands and had noodles under our feet so we were horizontal at the surface of the dark water. Then the raft beamed light down into the water, attracting plankton, and the plankton attracted the manta rays.

Amanda the manta ray glided about twenty feet below us, with a ten-foot wing span and weighing just under a thousand pounds. She opened her sizable mouth and shot up at us, hitting my sister and me with her wings as she swam down the length of our raft (as with the dolphins, we were not allowed to touch the manta rays - but if they touched us, that was their choice). It was a little terrifying initially - that mouth is huge. Because of the way their gills work, manta rays have to stay in perpetual motion to keep breathing, so Amanda did backflips and loop-de-loops as she took in all the plankton we attracted. Our guides recognized her from previous trips by the pattern of spots on her belly - there is a Hawaiian database of manta rays, which are recognizable by those spots.

A boat with a raft that has the light to attract plankton

We spent about forty-five minutes watching Amanda feast and in that time, we learned a lot about manta rays. There isn't much known about them, but this set-up on Kona is the best opportunity anyone has to study them. Manta rays give birth about every three to five years, and stay pregnant for thirteen months. The babies are born like little wrapped-up burritos, and when they unfurl their two-foot wings for the first time, they're on their own from that moment forwards.

Manta rays are also incredibly intelligent, like elephants or dolphins. The test generally used for animal intelligence is called the mirror test. Researchers put something on the animal's back, and then put them in front of a mirror. Intelligent animals will see the thing in the mirror, and turn to look at their own back to see what's there. This is how we know they recognize they're looking at themself in the mirror.

Photo of Amanda Ray from the Manta Pacific Research Foundation Catalog

Meeting Amanda was an experience unlike any other. She moved her enormous body with unbelievable grace, got up close and personal, and spent a long time with us. Our guide said in every other location where manta rays are studied, having one pass you twice is something to write home about. Amanda spent nearly an hour at our light/plankton buffet line.

Our guide had explained that manta rays can sense living things around them (but not non-living things - their eyes don't really work that way) and even seem to sense when humans want to help them. So I had to ask - if Amanda can sense me and my intentions, does she know that I love her?

The answer was yes! She knows!

That was the last thing I did on Kona. We got back to the resort, changed into dry clothes, and a few of us got on a plane. My sister, brother, sister-in-law, and niece all live in Phoenix, which is where my first flight took me. We left at midnight Kona-time, and got in around nine in the morning Phoenix-time. My next flight wasn't until four in the afternoon, so my sister took me back to her apartment for a few hours. We watched some TV, went and got coffee, and had Chick-fil-a for lunch! There's no Chick-fil-a in Edinburgh, so it was a real treat.

My next flight was back to London, and then I hopped over to Scotland and took a bus home. I got back to my flat around three in the afternoon and fell asleep pretty quickly. Traveling is exhausting, but I'm so glad I got to see my family for the week. It's such a gift to get together with everyone, even for a short time, and I loved our tropical vacation. Mahalo to Hawaii for such a wonderful week, and don't worry - I have a feeling we'll be back.

Book recommendation: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. I own a handful of books by this author, and I usually have one or two more on my Christmas list every year. Oliver Sacks was a neuroscientist who specialized in treating rare and peculiar cognitive disorders, and he had some fascinating stories to tell. In this book, he details some of his strangest cases, both telling the stories and explaining the science of them. The title is about an actual patient of his, who lost the ability to identify objects and ended one session with Sacks by grabbing the top of his wife's head and trying to put it on his own, thinking it was his hat.