Celebrating Christmas in a Thai High School
Guest Writer Poppy Earley-Lampang City, Lampang Province, Thailand.
Thailand, Expect the Unexpected!
Are you considering a move to Thailand but worried about spending Christmas in the heat, away from your family, friends, and familiar traditions?
This is a common concern for many prospective ESL teachers considering a move to Thailand, and it was no different for me.
I couldn't imagine Christmas feeling complete without the customary wood fire, Christmas dinner, and family board games.
It was a daunting prospect: a Christmas spent with friends, half the world away from my family and home in England.
Would Christmas Day feel like an ordinary day?
Although our Thai school never fails to bring the allure to any Thai celebration, I initially wondered whether Christmas would be treated with the same zeal.
However, as Christmas approached, I soon found that Thai people treat this Western tradition with the same enthusiasm as any Thai celebration.
For readers unfamiliar with Thai celebrations, they are impressive affairs. For example, recently, the school I work at (Bunyawat Witthayalai School or BWS) marked its 124th anniversary, and to commemorate the event, they held a day-long event with no less than four stages, fully kitted-out and music-festival-ready.
The students brought the talent to match, with an all-day program of musical performances and dozens of stalls, games, and mini-exhibitions set up around the school, including a haunted maze staffed by zombified students.
All in a public high school!
My former high school's best talent show or school disco couldn't hold a candle to the most modest BWS celebrations.
If one thing can be said about Thai people, they will make the most of any opportunity to throw a party.
Despite my doubts, Christmas, thankfully, turned out to be no exception.
The massive Christmas tree in Central Mall
My Thai High School preparing for Christmas
I work in a high school in Lampang, which is a city in the north of Thailand. It's a large school with around 3,500 students.
The first signs of Christmas emerged in early December: festive decorations appeared in the English department office. Students started wearing cute reindeer antlers and Christmas jumpers (anything below about 28⁰C is considered sweater weather here).
A kind colleague gifted me some antlers, and we were even invited to help decorate the English department's Christmas tree. I was tentatively beginning to hope that Christmas here wouldn't pass by unnoticed after all.
The foreign teachers with the Christmas trees outside the English department .
My colleague gave me a pair of antlers!
The anticipation only grew from there. A competition was held for each year group to produce the best Christmas displays of various kinds:
Mattayom 3 (rough translation: Year 10 for the British, 10th grade for the Americans) created model houses.
Mattayom 4 students created informative display boards about the history of Christmas.
My students, M5, created their full-size paper Christmas trees and snow globes.
The M3 student’s displays were awesome!
Some of the winning displays
Don’t Blink Yet!
These were just the start of the festivities - the main event was the Christmas party on December 23rd.
All English classes were canceled to allow staff and students time to prepare for the day's events: a singing competition, dancing competition, cake decorating competition, and a large stage with countless performances.
Every corridor and classroom was decorated with festive decorations, and I received many enthusiastic Christmas well-wishes from students.
The stage was beginning to be set up on the 22nd
A festive public health warning
The festivities would begin with speeches about the history and meaning of the season. The day started with an opening ceremony, and the entire English department sang a Christmas carol on stage.
My Christmas carol book
After this, different classes put on Christmas performances.
One of my favorites was an M4 class that did an impressive rendition of 'Nightmare Before Christmas,' which included a surprisingly well-choreographed sword fight between Santa Claus and Jack Frost and was all performed in flawless English.
The slapstick humor meant younger students were also engaged in the story without necessarily being able to follow all the dialogue.
An M4 class’ performance
This class did a dance performance
Ramshackle foreign teacher's Christmas talent Show
Then, it was time for the foreign teachers to perform.
A few weeks prior, the school had asked the three foreign teachers working in the English department and me to prepare a Christmas performance.
I had been anticipating the request as my former colleagues, Teacher Brooke, and Teacher Tati, had mentioned they had done it the year before.
We watched the video of last year's performance – it was high-energy and featured Brooke unexpectedly dropping into the splits in a Santa costume in front of a raucous crowd.
I doubted we could match that, but after some brainstorming, we cobbled together a ramshackle foreign teacher's Christmas talent show for the students.
This would include ‘Teacher Freya’ playing the guitar and singing 'All I Want for Christmas is You.' I'm not the performing arts type – my contribution was ‘Keepy-Uppies.’ After a few sessions of preparation and some nervous sweats on the day… I can happily say that the performance went well!
I showcased my talent of doing keepie uppies
Christmas Temptations as Far as the Eye Can See
I then had the unexpected pleasure of judging the cake decorating competition - it's unclear why I was deemed qualified for this task as an English teacher, but I was honored nonetheless - and the cakes were very impressive.
Cake designs included a remarkably well-engineered icing Christmas tree and a cute strawberry Santa Claus with a whipped cream beard.
The cakes looked incredible
Students Singing for the Stars
After this, it was time for the singing competition, which I judged, and the students were so talented that it made judging pretty tricky. However, I think the best singer won!
Student singing on stage
Students Dancing for the Stars
Next up was the dancing competition, where all the groups danced to K-pop. K-pop is hugely popular in Thailand; many students can recreate copious dances from memory.
This is awesome and makes me wish this dance style was more popular in the UK.
This group won the competition!
My favorite part of the day was a spontaneous dance session where snippets of well-known songs were played, and anybody who had learned the choreography would run into the middle and dance together.
This game is called Random Play Dance and is fairly popular, but it was a new concept to me; curious readers can find many videos of this phenomenon online.
The atmosphere was great, and I was impressed by the dance skills of the students.
How had they memorized so much choreography?
Students dancing together spontaneously
Still, No Time to Blink
If I hadn't had my fill of Christmas spirit on Friday, Christmas day would prove just as magical.
One of my Thai friends invited me to church on Christmas morning. This gesture of kindness made me feel very fortunate, and I hoped that spending Christmas morning in a church would bring some familiarity and comfort.
My friends and I hanging out on Christmas Eve
Experiencing Non-Secular Christmas in Thailand
After a brief and slightly terrifying drive down the highway, we pulled up to a small wooden house. It was terrifying because our driver - who also happened to be the pastor - was cruising at 120kph while applying her make-up in the rear-view mirror.
The wooden house was, in fact, the church. It resembled a traditional teak house with a wheelbarrow of bananas for sale outside.
Small kids dressed in Santa costumes sped around our legs, stopping to wave excitedly at us. Elders smiled widely and greeted us warmly with a "Merry Christmas."
The worship space was little more than a living room with a cross suspended on the back wall and a simple wooden altar.
The tiny church had an equally miniature congregation of about eight people; however, on Christmas day, they packed in around twenty-five people, including my friends and me.
The church was nestled in a small town about a thirty minutes drive outside of Lampang
The five hours we spent at church they consisted of singing, eating, and opening presents. The kindness of the small community there was heart-warming and left no room for homesickness on Christmas day.
We all had a great time at church
My school's day of celebration and month of festivities exceeded my expectations.
If you're thinking of teaching in Thailand and you're worried about being away from home for Christmas,
I hope my story has reassured you.
If your Christmas is anything like mine, it will be one of your life's most memorable and special.
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