Maybe next year Barry-dem can go make Christmas on Lāna'i.

No, no, no, not like the presidential 'ohana isn't welcome on O'ahu. Great to have him back on the island of his birth and all that. (Yes, I put in that line just because I love getting phone calls from crackpots who insist Obama was born in Africa or Jakarta or anywhere other than America and yes, I called them crackpots because that really sets them off and few calls are quite as funny as an angry crackpot leaving a crazed phone message on New Year's Eve.)

But Lāna'i can handle a 25-car procession of black SUVs taking the president to the beach much easier than O'ahu can. Those would probably be the only 25 cars on the road at the time. It's hard to feel the aloha for the kama'āina-in-chief when you're cooling your heels on the side of the Pali waiting for a presidential motorcade longer than the Aloha Week Parade to pass.

All of Lāna'i beaches are as uncrowded as Hanauma on a Tuesday, and the White House vacationers wouldn't have to contend with Mufi Hannemann snorkeling up from the Blowhole side to get a candid photo with the president for his Facebook page. (Kidding. That didn't happen. That we know of.)

Lāna'i can shut down tighter than a drum so the Obamas can have the whole place, mountains to ocean, to themselves. Ask Bill Gates. The president's entire cabinet can hang out at the Koele Lodge, order in that cowboy bacon and pineapple pancake room service and whack golf balls into the ironwoods all day long. Nobody would bother them and they wouldn't bother anybody.

Not that they bother folks when they come to O'ahu. Except every shave ice shack on the island gets staked out by reporters waiting for the presidential daughters to show up; the staff at Baskin Robbins gets asked questions about what the shop was like decades before they started working there and decades before they were born; and Hawaiian Electric holds its breath praying there's not another islandwide power outage, because twice in two years while the president is visiting would be so shame.

It's lovely that the president comes home to Hawai'i for Christmas. He can point out his small-kid-time landmarks to his friends. We all love to do that. But if he's staying 10 days, maybe next time he can holoholo to a neighbor island. Spread the aloha. And the traffic.