Christmas Cheer
Happy Christmas everybody!
Here ,would you believe it ,the weather has plummetted right down especially at night. This morning when we got up it was a mere 12degC and, considering there is no heating in the house and some of the windows have no glass, just mosquito mesh, it is pretty chilly. I never thought I would be this cold here. It warms up quite a bit in the day to about 25c so we are still wearing t shirts which is lucky ‘cos its all we’ve got!!
On Saturday we went and got a Christmas tree. Tescos are full of Christmas cheer now and the plaza has a massive tree that goes up the middle, 3 floors high, with a robotic santa (western) that climbs up and down! I was standing at the supermarket checkout on Tuesday and they were blaring out Silent Night, “Christ the Saviour is born”. It was very bizzarre to think that hardly anyone there had a clue what they were listening to (as it was in English of course) but then Andy pointed out when I got home that no one has a clue in Somerfield, Rustington either and they at least can understand the words .
Last week we took the children to see the musical Godspell. Andy said he remembered singing the songs in music lessons at primary school in the 70s. Did you see it first time around? It was excellent. The other Christian school in Chiangmai put it on and I thought it was just as good as any westend job .It was in this huge but lovely theatre right up in the roof of a mall. We hadnt realised it was there. It’s all up windy (or is that windey? - no draughts anyway) red carpeted stairways; very cosy . It was so nice to be able to take the children to see a show at Christmas!
There has been another big festival here, Loy Kratong, which went on for 2 weeks .Every one goes down to the river, sea , any kind of water but preferably moving water ,and they float (Loy) boats made of flowers (Kratongs) down the river. They believe they are floating their sins away with them. It is also thanking the water spirits for the rainy season .There are fireworks going off every evening for about a month running up to the main weekend and then on those nights massive amount of fireworks and also some giant hot air balloon things, about 6 ft tall, that they send up into the air. We had a meal by the river that night but it was so noisy we could hardly talk! There could have been a war starting and we would not have noticed.
There are only 4 more days of school till the Christmas holidays which is good as the children are still doing a ton of homework most nights, especially Mollie. They are all doing well at school though and we keep praying for the homework situation to change .
We are going to the Wongs over most of the holiday in Bangkok and then to the beach somewhere with them. They have organised it and we are really looking forward to seeing them.
Have a really lovely Christmas. We have our Christmas CDs playing and when we hear O Holy Night, cannot help but remember the great Christmas Specials of the last few years and miss you all hugely.
Lots and lots of love from us all,
Esther & Andrew, J,L,M,I xxxxxxxxx