Somehow, the voices of our class officers from Waimea, Japan, and China seemed like gentle breezes as their hands placed one colored bulb after another on the tree's branches. At HPA, November marks the ending of the great efforts of the fall. Exam conditions begin in the dorm, drawing to a close the academic efforts of the first semester, sports awards honor teams and select athletes for recognition, and the school play ends two solid months of heavy preparation by Ka Makani thespians. The genius of Christmas and its placement is that in the midst of seasonal darkness and death, the most hopeful liturgical day of its calendar is placed. The football players often cry on stage because their careers have ended.
Actors frequently do the same.
As with Christmas, it would take place in darkness and cold, the cold of the Waimea morning and the late night. At 6 AM wrestlers and their coach enter the weight room to build strength for state championships in March. The swim team is already thrashing the water and has been for a half-hour. They will have swum hundreds of miles in the morning dark before the league and HHSA meets. Late that same day, long after dinner, students from all over the world will spend just ten more minutes on the reading in Advanced Placement Literature or try to solve one more problem in their Calculus books.