Christmas in Thailand

Santa and students dancing to "Aloha Christmas"

They sold festive headbands and santa hats in the school shop

Thailand is heavily populated by Buddhists and the country is home to over 40,000 temples. About 1% of the population is Christian, and there are supposedly a few Christian churches around, but I have yet to see any, so imagine my surprise when Thailand put on more of a Christmas celebration than what I've seen in America. All month long the christmas spirit has been spreading throughout Thailand and the kids started learning the words to Jingle Bells and doodling snowmen and Santa Claus on their papers. We were told that we wouldn't have to teach on Christmas day, instead there would be 'activities' in the morning. In the past two months anytime they say there are school activities it usually just means that the students sing a lot of Thai songs and do some prayers, so I was pretty excited and surprised when we showed up to a Christmas celebration on Friday. All of the teachers wore red and many students were dressed up in anticipation for their performance on stage. All morning we had groups of students dancing and singing to various Christmas songs and some of the classes even did a present exchange. Of course Emily and I were put on the spot and got put in charge of announcing each performance before they came on stage, which made no sense because then a teacher would translate it into Thai so everyone understood what we were saying, but it was still fun to be included.
Later in the day I headed into Pattaya to pick up a package from the post office (thanks mom!) and was pretty bummed to see that the Christmas celebrations didn't spread outside of school. Pattaya is a huge expat city and I was really expecting to see some sort of celebration going on, but it appeared to be an ordinary day in the city. Many friends from home were shocked to hear that we had to work on Christmas day, but honestly I preferred that so much more as opposed to having the whole day off, especially after seeing that Pattaya wasn't celebrating. Even if we spent our day with those who probably don't even fully understand the history to Christmas it was still great to be surrounded by those in the Christmas spirit. Obviously some weird things happened too, because it's Thailand and nothing is ever completely normal. The end of the Christmas celebrations concluded with a fashion show made up primarily of guys wearing outfits that I can only imagine were hand crafted at school. On top of that, all of the kindergarteners seemed more dressed for Halloween as opposed to Christmas. Majority of the girls were wearing princess dresses and many of the boys were wearing superhero costumes. I'm not sure of the logic behind that, but it was adorable either way!
Holidays away from home are never easy, this is now my second Christmas abroad and I'm hoping it will be my last, but I'm also extremely grateful for the opportunity to experience a different culture, especially at such a fun time of year

Ending the Christmas celebrations with a fashion show