But by that night, everything changed. The Christmas tree lights were taken down by city workers, stores were closed, school Christmas plays were cancelled, and a government-imposed curfew was in effect. The only semblence of normalcy was the ring of Salvation Army volunteers. (Hawaii War Years by Gwen Allen)
In San Francisco, the first shipload of evacuees from Hawaii landed on Christmas Day. Some of them were new widows of men killed in the December 7, 1941 attack. Some of them hadn’t heard from their husbands and could only wonder if the men were alive or not.
The poinsettia plants intended to decorate homes and gardens, were given up and placed on temporary graves of fallen sailors and soldiers. The Christmas tree ship never arrived. There are some reports that the ship was attacked by Imperial Navy submarines near Oregon and sunk and drowned trees littered the West Coast for months. That article was in the Star-Bulletin, December 20, 1996. But there are other references (unfortunately, I don’t have the citations) that a storm hit the Oregon coast, causing the ship to loose its cargo. No matter what the reason, there were no “real” Christmas trees in Hawaii that year. People cut down the Norfolk pine-looking trees in their back yards; they decorated strawberry guava branches and red hibiscus plants.
Mrs. Charles Gregory placed a guava branch in a pot and lined the base with glass balls and decorated the branches with fishnets. Mrs. Peggy Kai gilded shells, eucalyptus seeds and coconut buds then hung them on red and green ti plants. Mrs. Harold Stearns painted various sizes of mailing tubes green then arranged them to look like a pipe organ.
There were quite a few inventive solutions to the Christmas tree problem. Mrs. Issack Cox took a dried palm branch from the trash and decorated it. She strung yarn for garland, and trimmed the tree with Christmas balls, colored tin icicles and Hawaiian holly berries. Mrs. Caroline Peterson took chicken wire and shaped it like a Christmas tree and covered it with air plants. She claimed that her tree “will sprout air roots and have a fuzzy aura.” And, Mrs. Elsie Das made the palm Christmas tree in the photo.
When I asked my dear friend, the late Toni DeMello about a Christmas tree she said she vaguely remembered some people painting empty rolls of wrapping paper and nailing them to scrap lumber and others putting paper loops or orange hala fruit on ti leaf plants.
She better remembers being quite upset about not getting a specific kind of doll for Christmas. It was a popular doll that year, and quickly sold out on island. Unknowing to her, her parents had an order in for it. But, after the attack, ships bound for Hawaii had room to carry troops and ammunition, there was no space for dolls. Toni said, “I had to wait for two years to get the doll.”
But there was more than holiday inconvenience to deal with that year. On December 24, 1941, the newspapers reported the attack on Wake Island by the Japanese. The diary of a high school girl named “Ginger” for Christmas Eve reads:
“Wake Island was lost to the Japs. Merry Christmas . . . Ha! Had our presents today, instead of tomorrow. I got a Chinese doll, a panda, a cute little bridesmaid doll, a little candle holder & candle, a large box of candy, lipstick, evening comb, inlaid wood chest, wood dog, and a slip.
“Had an air raid alarm. Lasted half an hour, but was only a drill, I guess.
“Marie finally called. [Marie is her classmate.] She doesn't know whether she is going to have to leave or not. I called Gaye and thanked her for the lipstick.
The Christmas entry mentions her friends [family members of military men] being forced to evacuate.
"Merry Christmas again. Kay called to . . . tell me Patsy was sailing this afternoon. She called again a half hour later to say 'Good-bye'. She'd been ordered out this noon, too. About an hour later we were called and told to be at pier 20 at 3:00 o'clock. Bill and Lloyd [Ginger's brothers]were in town trying to sell Bill's car, so Mom told them we couldn't possibly make it. Darn it, now we'll have to sit around and wait some more. Hope we get more warning next time. Wonder what we'll go on now. Those were the three best boats in today. All my pals have left me! Boo Hoo. (http://www.gingersdiary.com/diary6.html) 
Christmas dinners were modest that year. Civilians were dealing with long lines at grocery stores, food rationing and the scarcity of "luxury items" to make holiday dinners. However, the ships' reserves at Ford Island still had food enough to provide a banquet for the sailors on that first war-Christmas. Here’s the menu from the U.S.S. Pennsylvania, Christmas 1941. 
The nurses and Red Cross volunteers tried to bring Christmas to the hospitals. There were over 1200 military personnel wounded on December 7, and most of them were still in Hawaii.
It was a tough year.
Sailors on the island swamped the stores in Waikiki, buying gifts for loved ones and friends. “It was like they were dumping their money everywhere and anywhere before they went off to war.”
Velvet pillows embroidered with “Mother” over a Diamond Head silhouette were popular, as were engraved lockets.
In 1941, there were no midnight masses in Catholic Churches—there was a curfew in place. Anyone who went to a family member’s home for dinner stayed the night, for the same reason. Once the sun went down, no unnecessary travel was allowed. However, for most people, Christmas day was a work day—a forerunner of many holidays when the military government decreed business as usual. Defense workers worked around the clock, bus drivers, telephone operators, medical personnel standing twelve-hour shifts. Packages from the mainland were delayed, some into February.
1942 was much better, but there was still a prohibition against importing Christmas trees. That year the schools were open and art teachers on Oahu put on a joint display of “improved green symbols for the Yule season.” (Honolulu Advertiser, December 13, 1942) At Washington Intermediate School, Rita Howe, a home economics teacher, arranged an exhibit of her students’ trees. Trees were made from “banyan tree branches, rolled newspaper, and Norfolk pine trees.”
1943 was easier yet. Trees reappeared, the curfew rules were relaxed, ships began bringing in some commercial goods including toys. But it would not be until Christmas of 1945, that Oahu would have a Peaceful Holiday.
Merry Christmas to all.
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