I know it is boring reading about something that is long gone but this is for my reflection as well as others and I want to remember what I did in the short while I hung out in “The Land of Smiles”.
December was a busy month as can be expected and I was lucky enough to be able to visit a beautiful house owned by an older British couple who have lived in Bangkok for over 40 years.
It is built around two sides of a large rectangular pool, one of the long sides has a bedroom block of four rooms and bathrooms which was the couple’s four daughter’s domain. Now they use it with their families when they visit. On the short side is the main house built so that the living rooms huge glass wall opens right onto a deck built just above the pool level. Behind the living room is a dining room and off to one side is the masterbedroom, bathroom and TV room, while off to the other side is a restroom, kitchen and staff quarters. At the other end of the pool is a large wooden gazebo with wet bar and electricity. They love the outdoors so made good use of all these facilities.
It was an excellent venue for the British Women’s Club December coffee morning, we chatted, shopped for gifts, played some games and had an excellent buffet lunch. I shall remember that beautiful home for a long time to come.
Club Canada Thailand, which group Dave and I both belong to and edit the newsletter of, had their Christmas lunch in early December. It was a fine buffet meal of all the usual Christmas fare plus some Thai dishes and salads. We had a gift exchange where everyone who brought a gift got a number, after the meal we got to pick a gift when our number was called out. If we liked someone else’s gift we had the choice of taking theirs or picking a new one. Some gifts were ‘stolen’ a few times, of course the one who had their gift ‘liberated’ got to choose a new one, ensuring we all left with a gift. I twas fun, you just had to be prepared to get your gift taken over by someone else!
The children from Fatima Centre (they teach slum kids) came with Sister Louise and a volunteer helper who had been working with them for weeks to teach them Christmas carols (great way to learn English). The kids ranged in age from 4/5 to about 16. The older ones really helped with the singing as they knew the words better. They had a lunch on us and each child went home with a gift bag of goodies to share with friends.
Kids from Fatima Centre with St. Louise
Kids from Harrow Ekamie school Bangkok
A week later saw me at another Christmas lunch, this time the British Women’s Group one. It was much bigger than the Canadian one and we had a chance to shop for Christmas items, jewellry and clothes before the lunch. Their was a huge selection of venders and some beautiful items. Again we had a turkey dinner served at our tables and the cutest little individual Christmas puddings. We also had some children sing Christmas songs, this time they were grade one kids from HarrowInternational School here in Bangkok (all Thai and all from rich families) the opposite from the children who sang for us at the Canadian lunch, but just as cute.
One of the ladies does a wonderful imitaion of the Queen and she did a “Christmas Speech” which was very funny, then we had more carols sung by some of the members, they changed the words so they were funny. Santa came and handed out pressies (actually sweeties), we had home made crackers and everyone had brought a wrapped gift for the tree to be given to needy children. All in all a lovely day out. Definatly put me in the Christmas spirit.
Leave a Reply