Christmas 2015 in a Thai Village

Christmas 2015 in a Thai Village

The first thing to say is that Christmas 2015 in a Thai Village is nothing like any Brit would recognize as Christmas. Not even in the slightest now. However, when I first arrived here, eleven years ago, some families with kids did put up some decorations, although ninety-odd percent didn’t know that they wished passers-by a Merry Christmas.

However, that stopped happening several years ago, although I don’t know why. Nowadays, the one-hundred percent Buddhist population of our village only knows that it is Christmas if you remind them, and even then they have to think about it, because they are likely to pronounce and know the word as ‘Krisma’.

My wife has had two Christmases in the UK, so she knows what goes on, but she is the only Thai here who does know, and she also knows that I am not into the commercialism of modern Christmas – not that I am religious about it either. I never have been.

However, I do like a lot of time to myself at the end of the year in order to think about what happened in that year, and what I would like to do in the next one.

Neem, my wife, always has other ideas involving parties, but I have established a tradition of walking around the village and having a beer in each shop that sells it. It used to be easy when there were only three shops. However, now there are seven and I get tipsy more easily, so I have to be a little selective.

One fantastic improvement though, it that I always used to go alone, but my twenty-two-year-old daughter now comes with me – or she did this Christmas anyway. She didn’t drink any alcohol, but that was not the point anyway.

It was a Merry Christmas, just not in the traditional, British style. I hope that you enjoyed yours too.

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All the best,

Owen

Podcast: Christmas 2015 in a Thai Village