Christmas Carnival

The people of Thailand love Christmas. While it isn’t a religious holiday that doesn't stop them from decorating like crazy for it. As soon as Halloween was over the fake trees and blinking lights came out of storage and were everywhere. But it doesn’t feel like Christmas. It’s too damn hot to be Christmas. And the mood on Christmas Eve was more like a 4^th of July BBQ than the quiet ritual of Christmas. (Which is what I think Christmas is suppose to be like. I can’t remember if our family ever had a quiet Christmas Eve…) My school held something of a carnival for the occasion. Our drive was lined with twinkling lights, toy stands and tons of tables with Thai food and sweets. They spent all day preparing for the festivities and blaring Christmas classics like “Hotel California” and “Thriller.”

At the end of the drive the parking lot was converted into a stage surrounded with cloth covered tables for the parents to sit, eat and watch their kids perform. The kids and the teachers really go all out for these performances. There are two emcees and the children are dressed to the nines in costumes for their number. And they don’t dance to Christmas music; they rock out to horrible Asian pop music, which only makes it better. The parents create a mosh-pit with all their video cameras held high trying to get a piece of the action on tape. I could barely squeeze in to snap some proof that this was, in fact, really how I was spending my Christmas Eve.

Preaw

For our part, the English department was tasked with putting on the very abridged version of “Rudolph.” Our cast of 7 donned brown ninja-esc suits and antlers, Rudolph wore her red nose and stubby antlers and we found the smallest child to wear the Santa suit. I played the part of the narrator. So picture, if you will, me on stage-right with a bunch of Thai reindeer, speaking to hundreds of parents and the owner of the school (front and center, of course) when the microphones all died. I always wanted to know what it would feel like when your standing on a stage with the lights in your eyes and tons of parents with cameras pointed at you and your mic goes dead. Turns out, it’s a bit awkward. Even better, the kids got all confused: first they kept going, then they just stopped and stood there. No one besides Jenna (who was smiling at me from off stage) and I found this funny so no hope in taking a bow and laughing it off. A full minute of awkward smiles later the mics came back on and we finished the play. As I hightailed it off stage the kids lined up to sing the song. And they stood there. For another very long two minutes while the DJ tried to figure out which CD he was suppose to play. But hey, at least I was off stage this time.

The boys doing Muay Thai

Of course, ours was the only rough patch of the program. I stayed to watch my Thai babies dance and run around then promptly evacuated before I had to talk to the owner. After all, I had lots of packing to do before heading 14 hours to northern Thailand, also known as Eden. 

My star student, Pat. She counts to 30 in three languages!