You know it's a good time when "OK, this is the last song" is said about five different songs.

On New Year's Eve, Noelani Mahoe led three carloads of her friends and family on their annual tradition of New Year's caroling.

Just after 6 p.m., the caravan pulled up at Lunalilo Home, the care home for elderly Native Hawaiians in Hawai'i Kai. It's one of the carolers' favorite stops because many of the folks there know the songs, which are all in Hawaiian.

This is the 40th year of serenading for Mahoe, who says singing from house to house is an old Hawaiian New Year's tradition that she'd love to see perpetuated. Mahoe is a professional musician, teacher and scholar of Hawaiian music who studied with Mary Kawena Puku'i. Her band-mate, Hawaiian cultural practitioner Lynette Paglinawan, says her parents used to go out and serenade on New Year's, but she would stay home.

Now, Paglinawan's 10-year-old grandson is part of the caroling, singing earnestly and holding a laminated lyric sheet, though he doesn't need to look at it much.

"We're training the young ones to take over," Paglinawan said.

The other old New Year's tradition is to wear lei made from the keys of the hala fruit; it is a poetic reference, because "hala" also means "to pass." This year, Mahoe wore hala so red and glossy it almost didn't look real. "I've never seen hala this red!" she said, "Usually it's orange or yellow, or sometimes orange with a red tip."

The group of 11 singers, four playing 'ukulele, sing three or four songs at each stop, but at Lunalilo Home, the set runs eight songs. Then some of the residents, armed with 'ukulele, guitar and a pakini bass, sing old-time Hawaiian songs you never hear on the radio (which Mahoe knows) and then the hana hou goes into overtime.

"We like to visit the kupuna," Paglinawan says. "You see the joy. It triggers memories. They reminisce when they hear these old songs."

Several of the New Year's songs were recorded by Mahoe and Paglinawan as the Leo Nahenahe Singers on their Hawaiian Christmas album.

Lunalilo Home was the sixth stop on the tour. The caroling started around 2 in the afternoon in Mililani and headed east. After Hawai'i Kai, it was a friend's house in Kuli'ou'ou, then Pauoa, Enchanted Lake and then the home of old friends in Kane'ohe. They quit around midnight, hoarse but happy.

"By the end of the night, we can't reach the high notes," Paglinawan says, "so we start the songs in a lower key."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.