HONOLULU (KHON2) — Restaurants are booked and grocery stores are packed ahead of Christmas weekend.

Shopper, Tom Matta, said, “I did notice there’s a lot of people in the stores, you know, Foodland, Safeway and Whole Foods. So, it’s busy, but we’re still early so hopefully, we’ll get everything we need.”

Most families I spoke to said they’re willing to spend a little extra this year as prices have gone up.

“I guess we are noticing prices going up a bit. And I guess it’s related to inflation. But we haven’t gotten to a point where we’re cutting out things from the menu. Like we’re still thinking Christmas Special, New Year’s special. We want to have some of those sides and desserts and names that we always have because it’s a family tradition,” said Matta.

One resident said they are doing something a little less traditional. “We do Shabu-Shabu. So, everybody would just put in what they want, I don’t have to do anything. Everybody just cooks it themselves at the table and we’re done… we do it every year, partially because money has always been tight for us. And so, it’s a cheap way of like having kind of a celebratory dinner without doing the big primary of or something like that,” said resident Chan.

“Sometimes it’s last minute, including this year, but we’re gonna do something very simple, so it’ll be fun.”

Christine Oconnell

A personal chef said this is the busiest time of year for business and they too have to budget.

Hannah Johnson, personal chef for ByJane, said she buys her dry goods in bulk and fresh last minuet things at the farmer’s market. “I’d say just like being organized trying to utilize ingredients for multiple different dishes so that you can kind of save a little bit of money there and like certain things you can make ahead of time like your doughs and freeze them especially here in a way you pull them out thawed and like 30 minutes you know you can make fresh pies or cookies,” said Johnson.