My thai Christmas

This month went by so quickly with all its programs and duties. One day I woke up with the fear, that I just missed Christmas without noticing it. It was warm, I walked on the beach among palm trees and though the locals in tourism business put up some glittery decoration, there’s not much sign of the holidays.

I didn’t join the Xmas dinner of my yoga school, I wanted something more intimate (and cheaper) and finally Christmas evening was just perfect.

Six of us spent the evening together – three of us know each other for almost two months, met in the beginning of the yoga teacher training. We gathered on Sabrina’s balcony with a beach view, enjoyed the sunset, chat and had fresh tropical fruits & kombucha, and everyone dressed up in their most beautiful (or cleanest) dress. I am glad I spent this evening with them.

Later we went to a close by Middle-Eastern restaurant and when we all grew a food baby and barely could move because of eating too much, we joined the Xmas event and the Secret Santa game in Samma Karuna. Sixty of us exchanged presents, that took hours, but we had a lot of fun. We had all the nicely wrapped gifts on a table and picked numbers to decide the order of taking one from the presents. The Secret Santa rules were simple: number one picks one from the pile of gifts. Number two can decide either to pick one from the pile or to take the gift from number one (in this case number one can select another one). Number 60 can take the last gift from the table, or steal any of the 59 gifts opened by the others. This went on for a while with a lot a stealing and laughter and the most popular items (a box of premium chocolate, a blanket that can be folded to become a pillow, a book of Osho and a nice pair of yoga pants) had many temporary owners until we all were content with our gifts. Actually I also stole my present from someone: a bag of caramel-peanut popcorn. This is actually a Hungarian product of the brand Mogyi, imported to Thailand. I know it sounds weird, but this is one of my favourites at home. Well, at least the simple caramel covered popcorn, without the peanuts. But you know what, I can’t complain about this one either.

On Christmas Day many of us went cruising to the north of the island. Some hoped to snorkel around Koh Ma, the little island that I already visited earlier, but the wind was super strong and the huge waves brought some sand and dirt to the best snorkeling places, so this did not happen this time. But at least I saw the most beautiful bay on the island so far, where I could move in right now, without hesitation.

There was no snow, no christmas tree and no holiday movies, but there was plenty of hugs, video chat with my loved ones and lots of love. A perfect Christmas.