The Holidays Begin!

With December came cooler temperatures and much much lower humidity…WHAT A RELIEF! (Really Dennis and Nancy…you should have come in December or January!) We highly recommend that if anyone reading this wants to come visit us, do it in December or January if you don’t like heat and humidity! It really is beautiful now, with high temperatures in the mid 80s most days, and the evenings and mornings even feeling a little chilly, with temps down in the low 70s! (I know, that really isn’t cold but our blood has thinned and it does feel chilly!)

Rick has had lots of time off this month due to shut downs in Microchip to save money, so we were able to do our Christmas shopping downtown on days when the kids were at school, which was really nice! We brought most of our Christmas stuff with us (and wonder now why we didn’t just bring it all?!?!) and all of that was up by the first week of December, too. Some of the really funny things we noticed about Christmas in Thailand were: the use of elves (think Snow White and the dwarfs) in many decorations, the very very bright colors of Christmas trees and decorations (Neon green, orange, pink, you name it, they had it! Not so much the traditional red and green, though!), the fact that there were quite a few decorations the stores and malls (for a Buddist country, it was a surprise!), and yes, the Christmas carols you’d hear being played in stores and malls….in English, but with a heavy Thai accent! J

We were able to lots of traditional Christmas stuff, like visiting Santa (while at the International Food Festival at School – talk about tasty food!!!), participating in the Christmas play at church! Tim had a reading in it, the girls both danced, and all three big kids sang, too! It was quite the production and they did a great job, and making way too many Christmas cookies to eat!

Here’s some shots of the kids with Santa: