Christmas in Thailand

This year will be my second Christmas in Thailand and I am missing all my family and friends back in the states. However I do have a tree in my apartment and I decorated my bed in red for the holidays!

 

Only in Thailand do you see Holiday lights and decorations right next to Spirit Houses and a Santa made from red and white condoms. Even girls wear bunny rabbit ears instead of Santa hats or reindeer antlers. What a great mix of holidays and cultural variety.

 Although mostly a Buddhist country Thailand is home to people of all faiths and the Thais love to party so they easily adopt Christmas and New Years as another chance to gather with family and friends enjoying yummy food, singing, dancing and exchanging gifts!

Last year I was working on Christmas day because I was teaching in a government school, and we had students in an English story telling competition on December 25^th.  This year I am teaching at a private bi-lingual school so we could learn more about Christmas, and we also have a welcome week of vacation! 

It has been fun “doing” Christmas projects with the students; teaching Jingle Bells, The Twelve Days of Christmas and other songs as well as folding origami trees, carefully cutting paper snowflakes, making glitter encrusted ornaments, and gluing together multi-colored foil paper chains. We even made angels and snowmen from paper instead of snow because it does not snow in Thailand! 

I also did a morning assembly with 150 students singing and dancing. Then we had a huge happy Holiday party. I even arranged for Santa to visit. Now I am flying to INDIA with my Thai yoga teacher for Christmas, then New Years in Chiang Mai.  May you have a joyous, blessed Holiday Season and a fantastic 2012.

            "We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"