Goodbye To Private Merry Little Christmases
Christmas is a time of frantic frenzied activity within the Christian community here in Thailand. It is a time of outreach, giant neighborhood parties and trying to explain to everyone we are not celebrating the birth of Santa Claus, but in fact are celebrating the birth of Christ.
A typical party are tents and booths pitched outside on the dirt, sweaty crowds of people showing up for the food, treats & free presents. We play crazy games, kids are screaming, dogs are barking, there is trash everywhere and the sound system is so loud our ears are ringing.
Through the years my ideas about what Christmas is supposed to look and feel like have morphed from the American ideal into something much stranger and hardly recognizable for us whities.
I usually come home exhausted and half deaf, covered in dust and food. It's a grand and glorious time, always a funny new story, always the great feeling that you made Christmas for so many people. We still try to have a few hours Christmas morning as a family to get that sweet Merry Little Christmas time together, but the night before and time after is all for everyone else.
A typical party are tents and booths pitched outside on the dirt, sweaty crowds of people showing up for the food, treats & free presents. We play crazy games, kids are screaming, dogs are barking, there is trash everywhere and the sound system is so loud our ears are ringing.
Through the years my ideas about what Christmas is supposed to look and feel like have morphed from the American ideal into something much stranger and hardly recognizable for us whities.
I usually come home exhausted and half deaf, covered in dust and food. It's a grand and glorious time, always a funny new story, always the great feeling that you made Christmas for so many people. We still try to have a few hours Christmas morning as a family to get that sweet Merry Little Christmas time together, but the night before and time after is all for everyone else.
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