Merry Christmas from Thailand! It's actually Christmas Eve but we are celebrating today as we will be traveling tomorrow. We also celebrated at school today because they start exams tomorrow.
When we came in in the morning the whole school was already preparing. All the teachers were dressed in red and the kids were up there putting on these giant red shiny cone hats that they made. All the girls dressed in wedding gowns and were "Christmas angels" who passed out candy. They immediately put a santa hat on Felix's head, and gave me a red hat/scarf and belt and anything Christmasy since we weren't prepared with any red clothes. We headed down to what is normally just morning announcements and they had us start off the celebration by reading "Twas a Night Before Christmas". Sooo don't think the kids really got that one but ...oh well. After that the Christmas Angels and the rest of the English club kids sang a medley of abut 5 Christmas songs all packed into one. It was kind of strange and they forgot a lot of the words but it was funny haha. Then we threw candy at everyone! More of a cross with halloween but the kids obviously went nuts. They drew names from a hat for a long time and those people would come up and receive presents. The whole celebration took about an hour so it was really nice to see all the effort the put into celebrating Christmas even though they are after all, a Buddist country!
There was an assortment of about 5 types of cake and coffee for the teachers afterwards. Felix and I pretty much decided classes would be unnecessary for the day since they started exams the next day and it was a holiday afterall. I played Monsters, Inc for my kids all day which they loved. We don't have Thai subtitles on our movies so we originally tried to do A Muppets Christmas but seeing as they had no idea what was going on, we changed it to Monsters, Inc. which they could understand most of and thought was hilarious.
At lunch there was a big karaoke celebration. I wish my camera hadn't died by this point because this was by far the most memorable moment of the day. After a bunch of random songs like One Moment in Time, and the she wore an itsy bitsy tiny weeny bikini song preformed by the students, it was kind of open mic time. Two of my 12th grade students preformed Linkin Parks, In the End and it was awesome. They were so nervous and their hands were shaking but one did the rap part while the other sang in the background. All the girls were going nuts and screaming and they kept going up and giving them money ahaha. Then a girl did Zombie by the Cranberries which was also amazing and she actually sounded just like the original song. Ahh and then the impromptu finale...... Felix got on stage. And they played POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME for him. I don't think any of them had ever heard this song but Felix let all his inhibitions go and sang it..and danced to it with all his heart. Allllllll the kids were screaming. By time I turned around too I could see pretty much the whole school had surrounded us to see Teacher Felix going nuts on the mic. He didn't actually know all the words and got lost so he was just making up things but no one knew English anyways so it didn't matter. I don't think the director liked it much he kind of just shook his head and Felix's accidental crotch grabbing and dance moves but the other teachers looved it haha. One man we have never talked to must have been the only one to know the song because he was going crazy and pretending to pour sugar on himself and like head banging in his seat ahaha. We went up and gave Felix gifts at the end and well yeah.... it was Felix's shining Christmas in Thailand moment!
To end the day we cooked another delicious meal at home. Since schnitzel cordon bleu was so delicious for Thanksgiving, and we don't have many more options, we decided to make that again. No complains..it's always incredible. We had a chocolate pudding cake too. Anddd I pretty much couldn't move afterward.
So in the end Christmas in Thailand was NOTHING like at home. But we made it pretty great nonetheless. Happy holidays everyone!! We wish we could be home to celebrate with you all.
We are about to leave to travel to Mae Hong Son RIGHT NOW! Will return from our trip to there, Chiang Mai, and Laos in about a week! I miss everyone and hope you have great holidays celebrating a little more traditionally they we are here !
Oyy... and its very hot.
Merry Christmas!
Brienne
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