But for thousands of Hawai'i residents, burdened by poverty and struggling to balance low-paying jobs against rising rental costs, medical bills and child-care expenses, even that simple pleasure can be out of reach.

The Advertiser and Helping Hands Hawai'i are teaming up again this holiday season to help those in need through the Advertiser Christmas Fund drive. The money will be used for families who need help making it through the holidays and any money remaining after the holidays will help people throughout the year.

For more than half a century, Advertiser readers have emptied their pocketbooks toward that goal, and for the past four years, donations to the Christmas Fund have topped $100,000.

Last year, said Helping Hands Hawai'i program manager Capsun M. Poe, more than $147,000 was donated.

Some, including the students, faculty and staff of 'Iliahi Elementary School, gave more than $1,000. Many gave all they could. Local businesses pitched in, and Aikahi Elementary School adopted families. One generous Hawai'i resident, The Advertiser Christmas Fund's Secret Santa for more than a decade, matched the first $25 of each donation, and gave more than $28,000 to last year's fund.

Susan Doyle, Aloha United Way's chief operating officer, said the need for assistance among Hawai'i families hasn't slacked off despite some indications that, for some people, the economy is improving.

"The calls we get this time of year haven't changed," she said. "They're for basic subsistence: food and shelter. They're from people worried about the trade offs — whether to use what little they have for food or rent or medical care."

Teresa Bill, co-chair of the Hawai'i Self-Sufficiency Standard advisory committee, which calculates what a family needs to survive, said the costs of life here are higher than working families at the lower end of the scale can manage.

Many families in need are employed in the service or hospitality industries, the largest job growth areas in the state. Those jobs may be easier to come by this year, Bill said, but the wages are still low.

A person employed full time and making minimum wage brings home an annual wage of $13,000, Bill said, and extra hours or second and third jobs are unlikely to bring that amount up to subsistence level.

A single parent with two young children must make more than $40,000 a year just to meet basic expenses in Central or Windward O'ahu, she said, and few lower-end jobs pay $19 an hour.

Even those who are making enough to survive can find themselves on the other side of the poverty line if illness, accident or job loss intervenes. The sudden loss of affordable rental housing — a common occurrence now with new real estate owners trying to meet much higher mortgages — can mark the difference between normal family life and homelessness.

"These are situations that any of us — at any point — could find ourselves in," Bill said.

Often, said State Rep. Brian Schatz, executive director of Helping Hands Hawai'i, parents in lower-income working families manage rent and groceries, but will never have the money to make the larger purchases the rest of us take for granted.

"Beds," Schatz said. "I think that is one of the most heart-breaking situations; many families don't have beds. They're too expensive. They easily cost one month's rent.

"If you live in poverty," he said, "other things take priority over sleeping on a mattress."

The deployments of thousands of Hawai'i-based soldiers and Marines to Iraq and Afghanistan have made life difficult this year for a number of military families in the state, Schatz said. Families of Reservists and Guardsmen — men and women who gave up civilian jobs in Hawai'i to fulfill military obligations overseas — are especially vulnerable, he said.

Poe, of Helping Hands Hawai'i, said that in 2003 only 30 military families requested assistance. That number tripled in 2004, he said.