KAILUA, Hawaii — President Barack Obama and his family have arrived in Honolulu to spend Christmas in Hawaii, where the president was born and raised.
Air Force One touched down
in Honolulu minutes after midnight local time on Saturday. The first
family departed the plane and traveled quickly to their vacation house
in the beach town of Kailua, a scenic, sleepy beach town on the east
side of Oahu.
Kailua is roughly 12 miles (19 kilometers) from
downtown Honolulu. Obama’s vacation house sits near a Marine base, on
the north end of a five-mile (eight-kilometer) stretch of beach popular
among windsurfers and paddle surfers.
As the president and his
family departed Air Force One, Obama had shed the jacket he was wearing
when he left Washington and was in a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled
up. The first family left Washington on Friday night.
White House officials say the president’s vacation itinerary doesn’t include any scheduled public events.
No
return date has been given by the White House. Obama himself said
earlier Friday that, since a deal hasn’t been reached to avert the
so-called “fiscal cliff,” he would be returning to Washington after
Christmas.
