In the spirit of the seasons, it’s time for my second annual List of Hanukkah Wishes.

To review: Hanukkah is an eight-day Jewish holiday that this year begins on Dec. 22.

It always falls near Christmas. That, my non-Jewish friends, is a coincidence. Repeat, coincidence.

Hanukkah has nothing to do with Christmas, which is a Christian holiday. (You can google it.) The birth of Jesus is not in the Jewish faith apparatus’ wheelhouse.

Easy way to parse the difference between Judaism and Christianity: We light candles. You decorate trees.

So don’t call Hanukkah “Jewish Christmas.” How would you like black people calling Christmas “White Kwanzaa”?

Now that you are properly schooled, let’s begin. One wish for each day of Hanukkah plus one bonus wish.

A Life Coach For Keith Kaneshiro

First Day of Hanukkah Wish: I wish Tulsi Gabbard all the best in the world, or whichever planet she inhabits.

Second Day Wish: I wish that we would show more love to cattle egrets, those snowy, gawky, neck-undulating birds that move like they’re modeling a Monty Python silly walk.

The best live theater in East Honolulu is watching those critters at Koko Head District Park march single file, following the tractor mower like the pied piper as it zigs and zags across the ball fields digging up the grubs for egret grub.

They’re white, invasive, out-of-place-looking, and populating like crazy all over the islands.

Just like us haoles.

Third Day Wish: I wish Mister Rogers were still alive so he could be hired as the Honolulu Prosecutor Office’s life coach. Hey, Keith Kaneshiro, after your release won’t you be my neighbor?

Fourth Day Wish: I wish Foodland would stop putting “Farms” into the names of its fancy new stores.

So I hop into my old Dodge pickup and head on down to this new Foodland Farms store in Pearl City because I needed a new belt for my combine and a bell for my lead cow Bessie.

Yeah, so I get inside and, I’ll be jiggered, what do I see in front of me? A doggone wine bar. Whoa Nelly!

The motto of the national 4-H Clubs is “Head, Heart, Hands, and Health.” Foodland Farms adds a fifth one: “Hubris.”

A Little Asphalt Would Be Nice

Fifth Day Wish: When my immigrant grandparents came to this country, they thought our streets were paved with gold.

Now, I just wish our streets were paved with something.

Sixth Day Wish: I wish our state legislators would quit being so weaselly and wobbly about gut and replace. Dudes and dudesses, stop with the hypocrisy already. Who you kidding? Gut and replace exists because you want it to. You like it. It makes your job easier.

It gives what in legislature lingo you would call “essential flexibility,” but which we commoners call lack of transparency and accountability, as you do those cloak-and-dagger last-minute Final Night deeds inside your lair in those dimly lit halls amidst the creepy shadows of the deserted downtown.

Seventh Day Wish: My sincere, best wishes on his future endeavors to ex-police chief and new felon Louis Kealoha who, as Civil Beat recently put it, “doesn’t appear eager to pay back what he owes” to Honolulu’s taxpayers for being a crook.

Yeah, he’s about as eager to pay back that quarter of a million as I am to buy clothes from his personal haberdasher.

Clarity From HART

Eighth Day Wish: I wish rail CEO Andrew Robbins would say something — anything — of substance.

SANTA: Where’s your Christmas list?

ROBBINS: Mister Claus and the Claus public, be reassured that my team and I …

SANTA: It’s due in 15 minutes.

ROBBINS: … are presently doing the required Christmas-listical due diligence, and we are confident that …

SANTA: You never turned in last year’s list.

ROBBINS … that we will overcome the few remaining bumps in the road propitiously and efficiently so that …

SANTA: My elves suspect some of you should be on the naughty list.

ROBBINS: Because that investigation is pending, I have no comment. As I was saying …

SANTA: Keep in mind that it’s better to give than …

ROBBINS: Yes, of course, than to receive. No doubt.  Let me speak to that and be perfectly transparent. The public can be reassured that our team has both the plan and the where-withal-atality to implement our gift-giving process fairly, fully, and responsibly.

SANTA: Really? How are you going to pay for that?

ROBBINS: Presently our plan is to consolidate all remaining gift-giving costs by mean of a public-private partnership with the Easter Bunny. This will result in significant cost-savings by putting all of our eggs in one basket.

And to do so both under budget and on time.

Special Bonus Wish to the soon-to-be defunct Pier 1 Stores in Hawaii for selling Christmas tree ornaments adorned with Jewish stars and Hanukkah symbols.

A fond aloha to you, Pier 1, and a merry, merry White Kwanzaa.