So in the few days leading up to Christmas, Kristine was getting nervous as she had just been informed that in 1 week she would be organizing the kids, with her fellow teachers in a school Christmas play in front of all the teachers and parents. Oh and also starring in it as Mrs Claus, being the only female teacher.
I'm guessing if she hadn't had started working there it would have been more of a Christmas meets rocky horror, with one of the male teachers playing the roll. :-) So she asked and it was allowed that I (Stephen) could come down to watch the show and I was so glad I did. It was really well put together and I got to go back stage to see the magic. I say magic, more like 30 screaming kids dressed as elves and reindeer running in circles screaming, as the teachers tried to get them into costume.
The story of the play was that all the kids were in bed waiting for Santa, who arrived with his elves, so they could make the presents (seemed like he had all year to make them but who am I to judge), but then mean old Jack Frost comes along with his evil elves and steals the presents and kidnaps Santa.
This is were Kristine comes in she ran out on stage to wake Santa and later she had to pretend to call Frosty the Snowman to come and save Christmas. There was then an epic battle between Jack Frost and Frosty the Snowman, accompanied by batman sound bites of "Whack..., Kapow..., Pop..." and other Looney Toon's noises. "She wasn't too happy about me putting videos up but she is asleep now so moo hoo haha :) So check them out.
Second video - Kristine's Xmas play and Third video - Kristine's Xmas show . ( Just click the links to watch the video) The kids all loved it when Santa and Mrs. Claus went into the crowd handing out sweets and I have to say Kristine's acting was amazing, for some one standing in front of 1000 parents and kids doing a kindergarten Christmas play, I would have been very nervous as all the parents pay a lot of money to send their kids to this school as its seen as one the best in Khon Kaen.
My phone memory died for most of her speaking parts so I was a bit gutted but managed to delete a few pictures to get the videos .
Also with the families of the school being a well off , Kristine has been given a number of expensive gifts from the parents of her students, which is surprising as Christmas is not celebrated here but it is everywhere in the shops and streets. She had one student break her heart, a girl who had lived in Canada for the past few years so had gotten presents from santa and was accustomed to the whole idea, said to Kristine " Teacher, I wrote a letter to Santa Claus last year, how come he never came" this girl is 5 by the way :(
Then came our turn for Christmas as we were not feeling very christmassy and we're missing home a bit, but we came down to Supan's on Christmas Eve and Rainny had decorated the place and we even helped paint a sign on the front of Supan's house using her logo on a white wall which wasn't being used. While enjoying a few beers in the sun, Gagan and Kristine did most the work and I joined in after my class to help out. I said in the new year I'm going to definitely paint more as canvas here is quite cheep and the same with supplies as there is a fine arts course in Khon kaen university.
That night we made a list of all our favourite x-mas movies, from Bad Santa to Gremlins (yes, it's a Christmas movie as well as Die Hard) and we set the projector up inside. Dylan and Rainny made hot peppermint chocolate cocktails which started to bring the x-mas feelings back while watching.Rainny also dressed as Santa Claus and surprised us all with presents which blew us away from herself and Dylan. We were not expecting it but it made the night so much better.
We got a new toaster oven as we had mentioned we missed being able to have cheesy toast at home :-)On Christmas day we wanted to return the favour and Supan's was hosting a food buffet and cocktail buffet where you pay 12 euro yep €12 euro for all you can eat and drink for 4 hours... so we went and bought 5 litres of red wine and wrapped it and when we gave it to them Kristine, as an addition to the present, said she would make mulled wine, which if you haven't had before, is heated wine with oranges, brown, sugar, cinnamon and cloves and tastes of Christmas.
We said they could sell it or keep it and once all the Thais arrived and tried it, they added it to the menu as people seemed to love it, especially as at night it had gotten nippy for us and when we say nippy we mean we were very cold and that was at 18 degrees.. it was so weird going from getting use to wearing a suit in 35 degree and 28 at night to 21 during the day and 18 at night.
I know people at home will laugh at that but our bodies have acclimatized enough were it was gloves and jacket time at night and still shivering. We had an awesome Thai style Christmas and hung out with some of the locals watching them try their first "on fire" absinthe from the bar. I was shown up by one Thai girl who had learned Irish dancing in Japan and advised me of my mistakes when I tried making it up on the spot. I figured its just keep your upper body straight and flail your legs around like your standing bare foot on hot coal.
They all had a good night and said they would start coming back to the bar to hang out more often.There is also a veterinarian course in the university so they have some (unusual for Thailand) animals in big fields around the complex and they happened to have couple of reindeer just to bring Christmas to Thailand.
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Feel free to leave us any comments on our trip or advice on the blog as we are new to this. thanks for reading..