I waited & waited but unfortunately the man by the tree didn't move. Oh well, it makes for an appropriate Hawaiian Christmas - shorts & all! I absolutely love this tree! This photo was taken last year at a hotel I worked at in Hawaii, the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa. Every year, many, many boxes of tree parts & decorations were taken out of storage so the tree could go up as quickly as possible after Thanksgiving. As you can imagine, it was quite a job with any available staff being called on to help "fluff" branches. There was always something new every year with the design by super talented Grayson Pacheco who, at other times of the year was a server in one of the restaurants!
One year the tree was delayed going up while Blue Crush the surf movie with Kate Bosworth was being filmed. There couldn't be any Christmas decorations up as it would interfere with the storyline.
Here's some photos taken while the movie was being filmed:
The hotel was called "Lanakai" in the movie. There's generally a large custom-made koa wood table in the lobby that was removed for filming.
The casting crew was great & tried to use a lot of the actual hotel staff as extras. That's my former colleague Dawn on the left, who I think played a greeter at the luau.
There's Rene on the right who was a "football wife." She had a necklace on that said "foxy" and I used to tease her about it.
Mele Kalikimaka everyone.