I did not know until I was at the celebration that it is meant to be a time you do no work. Not any kind of work. But lei making is not work, it is a social thing. You get together with your friends and walk hours in the forest, collecting material you clean along the way.

Cleaning means you pick a stem, then carefully removed about an inch worth of leaves and leave an inch worth.

You talk, and you can drink wine.

At Makahiki, we talked and learned. This is the teacher and someone who came down from Kona to participate. She brought a girlfriend and we all had an amazingly lovely time, with no wine. She was a slightly tamer version of Lady Chablis from the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I am talking personality only here. She was a lot of fun.