PAT GEE / PGEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Poinsettias and miniature Christmas trees adorned a grave marker at Hawaiian Memorial Park in Kaneohe on Thursday.
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Holiday memory
Families adorn graves with special seasonal decor
The spirit of Christmas is taken quite seriously at graveyards throughout Oahu.
Visitors bring small evergreens with tinsel, pots of poinsettia and other festive decorations to commemorate their loved ones.
Gene Castagnetti, director of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl for 17 years, says the decorations come despite strictly enforced rules against anything artificial. Items with small metal parts, and the hooks people use to anchor pots and other decorations, become dangerous "flying missiles" when the lawn mower hits them, he explained.
Still, "people want to put things that last, and tangible things have some degree of permanence. ... I have some who like to put gifts, like an offering, to say 'We miss you,'" Castagnetti said, adding that there is a lot of symbolism in the mementos left at gravesides.
"Toys, gifts, floral displays (and such) get more and more elaborate, especially around Christmas, when people go a little more overboard in keeping with the trend of the season," he said.
PAT GEE / PGEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
The Lara family -- cousins Ryan, left, and Riley, mother Susan and sister Deanna -- decorated the grave site of Christen, who died when she was almost 3 years old, at Hawaiian Memorial Park.
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At Diamond Head Memorial Park, 87-year-old Gilbert Freitas held onto a walker as he made his way slowly through the headstones to visit his mother and father, who died in 1986 and 1954, respectively. His daughter, Charlene Brokofsky, arranged red and white chrysanthemums in honor of Christmas "so they can feel a part of the holidays."
"We do it for us. They're with us. Even though they're not physically with us, they're spiritually with us. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for them," she added.
Freitas, whose relatives are buried at four cemeteries, said Punchbowl has the most strictly enforced rules on decorations. Others, like Diamond Head, Nuuanu and Hawaiian memorial parks, tend to leave the artificial displays alone for a longer time before they dispose of them, he added.
At Hawaiian Memorial Park in Kaneohe, Millie Clark of St. Louis Heights comes every other week to cut the grass and bring flowers. She brought a gold pine-cone Christmas tree and other decorations for her ex-husband and her grandson, who was only 22 when he died in 1998, she said.
"I don't say anything to them. I come here so often. I just hope he knows that I'm here," she said of her grandson.
Evelyn McKee of Ewa Beach and a grandson brought two small gold and silver trees for her husband's and son's graves. She buttressed them with chopsticks against the strong Koolau wind and secured tinsel trim around the headstones with metal hooks.
"I just want it to look nice. Fresh flowers don't last. They're not with us for Christmas, but we can at least come here and visit. It makes me happier," McKee said.