Kicking off the Party Season

December is a month full of birthdays at our house, both near and far. (Sending love and hugs to Uncle Gerry and Cousin Wendy!) We started the festivities this year with Daddy's birthday on the 11th. An extra birthday present for him this year: he was not scheduled to return to Chiang Mai until the 15th but his travel schedule changed and he took advantage of an opportunity to escape the noxious smog in Shanghai and celebrate with us here. The kids were so excited to have him back home!

We let Heinz choose the restaurant and he decided on the very lovely River Market Cafe, east of the old city, on the Ping River. 

We enjoyed some delicious local dishes, thirst quenching juices and a beautiful view of the river.

After dinner we explored the grounds a bit, getting a closer look at the beautifully-lit Iron Bridge nearby.

We floated a lantern in place of candles on a cake. Make a wish, Daddy!

The kids played on the "elephants" by the river and then we headed back home.

The festivities continued the next day with the "Adventsbasar und Weihnachtsfeier" at the School the following evening. 

We are still trying to wrap our minds around attending Christmas activities, surrounded by trees, lights and Santa hats while wearing shorts and short sleeve shirts. The kids ate bretzels and wurst and played a few games. 

Nice shot, Conrad!

After evening fell, the students put on their Annual Christmas Show. The first graders sang a German version of Jingle Bells.

As usual, the Christmas songs made me very nostalgic and melancholy, but the joy of the children and the season in general does help to soothe, a bit, my longing for those I love who are far away.
We continued the next day with the Kindergarten festivities, a coffee breakfast with the Mums and Dads.

The parents were serenaded by the kiddos with "In Der Weihnachtsbackerei" and then we were all presented with gifts made by the kids, delivered earlier that morning by the resident Swiss Santa, Vivienne's friend Elias.

Vivienne celebrates the last day of the term with her friends Ylvie and Elena and an uncharacteristically shy Santa.

You know you are not partying in the west when the Christmas tree sugar cookies and coffee cake are nestled next to satay, sticky rice, speckled eggs and banana leaves! (That satay certainly did not last long!It was delicious!)

After 3 days of partying, we took a break to welcome Grosi to Chiang Mai and settle into the kids' first week of school break.

We capped that week off with one final soiree, the annual Swiss Lanna Society Christmas Party. For the kids, the best part of that event was the swag they got from the Balloon Man!

We still have one very important party to host, a certain 7 year-old's birthday fest, but as most of his friends are away for the 4-week break, we have had to postpone it into the New Year so they can come as well. In the meantime he celebrated with some other friends by doing 7 burpees that morning at his CrossFit Kids workout!

We've enjoyed our holiday season and hope you have enjoyed yours as well. We continue to hope that one day soon we can celebrate with you, too.

Love to you all~

Saint Nicholas, 2013

Setting up for Saint Nicholas' Day last year was pretty simple as we lived in a climate where the children had already long since been wearing their winter boots. How does one celebrate in a country where the children only wear flip flops? I considered this option:

Then I remembered that, although they have been in the closet for weeks as the rainy season has passed, the children do still have boots! So I went with a more traditional solution.

Thanks Saint Nick! Conrad and Vivienne are very happy with their treats! We enjoyed the morning and then headed off to tackle some errands, which began with a stop at the fish store. Funny how a free fish, won at a Christmas carnival the night before, turns into a 20 dollar tank and 9 fish friends to keep him company!

No fish, free or otherwise, is dying on my watch! Now we just need to remember to feed them all the time. We finished all of our shopping and headed out to enjoy some of the local Christmas decorations. With all the reports of vicious smog in Shanghai and record ice and snow in Dallas, we're happy to say that the sun is so bright today in Thailand that Conrad could have worn shades!

Elephants in Santa hats; does it get any better than that??

Hope you all are enjoying the Christmas decorations in your part of the world~

Loi Krathong and Yi Peng

The recent full moon last week was cause for celebration through all of Thailand. 

Loi Krathong

In the traditional Thai lunar calendar, the full moon in the 12th month, (usually November), is the time when Loi Krathong is celebrated. According to Wikipedia, "Loi Krathong is often claimed to have begun in the Sukhothai (1238 until 1438), by a court lady named Nopphamat. However, it is now known that the Nopphamat tale comes from a poem written in the early Bangkok period (1760's to 1930's). According to H.M. King Rama IV, writing in 1863, it was a Brahmanical festival that adapted by Thai Buddhists in Thailand to honor Buddha, Prince Siddhartha Gautama."

Furthermore, "Loi means 'to float', while krathong refers to the (usually) lotus-shaped container which floats on the water. Krathong has no other meaning in Thai besides decorative floats, so Loi Krathong is very hard to translate, requiring a word describing what a Krathong looks like such as Floating Crown, Floating Boat, Floating Decoration. The traditional krathong are made from a slice of the trunk of a banana tree or a spider lily plant. A krathong is decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, incense sticks, and a candle. A small coin is sometimes included as an offering to the river spirits. On the night of the full moon, Thais launch their krathong on a river, canal or a pond, making a wish as they do so. The festival may originate from an ancient ritual paying respect to the water spirits...The candle venerates the Buddha with light, while the krathong's floating symbolizes letting go of all one's hatred, anger, and defilements. People sometime cut their fingernails or hair and placed the clippings on the krathong as a symbol of letting go of negative thoughts. However, many ordinary Thai use the krathong to thank the Goddess of Water, Phra Mae Khongkha."

The festival is celebrated throughout the community, with many locations set up along the river with stands of seating for watching and launching floats. Traffic is bad in the old City on a good day, so as much as we wanted to view the events first hand, we decided to have our own little celebration a bit closer to home. (Also it WAS a school night!)

This year the full moon fell on Monday, the 18th. Conrad and Vivienne both made floats at school. We waited for night to fall, lit the candles and they launched their floats on our private "pond".

Letting go of negative thoughts. (And no, we did not include fingernail clippings.) 

Make a wish.

We paid our own brand of respect to the water spirits by swimming with the floats. 

Thank you, Phra Mae Khongkha, the Godess of Water.

Yi Peng

The festival of Yi Peng is held on the full moon of the second month of the Lanna, or Northern Thai, calendar. "Yi" means second and "Peng" means month in the Lanna language. Due to differences in the Thai and Lanna calendars, Yi Peng and Loi Krathong happen in the same lunar cycle. The festival is meant as a time for tham bun, to make "merit", the Hindu and Buddhist versions of kharmic brownie points. "A multitude of Lanna-style sky lanterns or khom loi, literally "floating lanterns", are launched into the air where they resemble large flocks of giant fluorescent jellyfish gracefully floating by through the sky. (Wikipedia) Although difficult to capture with my camera at night, the sky above the rice fields behind our house was beautifully lit with hundreds of pinpoints of light, the floating lanterns.

Later that evening, we celebrated my friend Antoinette's birthday one day early. At the end of the night, another friend provided her with a lantern to launch. 

Happy Loh Krahtong and Yi Peng, everyone!
(Happy Birthday, Antoinette!)

Martinfest 2013

Last year Conrad and Vivienne celebrated Martinstag in Shanghai with the German Playgroup we regularly attended there. I cannot believe a year has passed and the time to celebrate Martinstag has come around again.
This year, in Chiang Mai, we celebrated with their school. The children spent a few art classes making their lanterns for an evening celebration. The festivities took place on the grounds of the McKean
Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, not far from the German School.
The evening began with a picnic dinner on the lawn.

As darkness approached, everyone got their lanterns ready. Vivienne was very proud of hers: a red Ferrari, logo and all, fashioned out of an empty liter water bottle. Conrad went very traditional this year.

Everyone gathered in the nearby open-air church to sing some lantern songs, accomapnied by a guitar trio made up of 3 of the teachers, including Conrad's teacher Herr Tetzel.

A re-enactment of St. Martin sharing his coat with the beggar was provided by the first grade class.

As it got dark, we lit the lanterns and walked around the property, led by the guitar trio. The kids proudly and joyfully sang the songs they have learned over the last few weeks.
Vivienne happily carried her Ferrari.

Heinz and I walked with the lanterns that the kids made last year. They made songbooks also this year so I was even able to sing along, seeing the lyrics. I know all the melodies by now from listening to them singing the songs at home.

Conrad mostly walked with his friends but I did manage to catch up with him and get a picture of him, too.

The McKean Center, a branch of the Church of Christ in Thailand and formerly a leprosarium, has a Nursing Home facility at the heart of its campus. The children stopped in to deliver some cheer and songs to the residents.

After making all the rounds and singing all of the songs, everyone was invited to a bonfire in one of the nearby lots. Those who wanted to could toast bread dough on long sticks in the fire. 

Conrad actually even ate his! 

It was a lovely clear night, but still not cool enough to warrant spending much time around a bonfire! The kids had fun and that is always the most important part. And I enjoyed watching them. I felt a lot of nostalgia for our Shanghai friends, but that's nothing new.

Hope your lights are shining brightly~

Out Our Back Window

A few months ago I posted an entry introducing you all to our neighborhood, including pictures of our back door neighbors,

the cows. Early in August, about a month into the rainy season, the fields had filled up with water and their true nature as rice fields became evident. A few backhoes showed up and shored up the walls between the paddies. Then one rainy Sunday morning a team of workers appeared and began to plant the rice.

 

The rice seedlings are delivered to the fields in sacks.

Then the seedlings are planted by hand in small bunches, a foot or so apart. Here is a full day's work for the team.

It truly looks like back-breaking work. I know I couldn't do it.

Some of them worked in bare feet. Some of them wore socks. One or two of them had boots that were lower than the water line. Eeewww, working in wet boots all day long. I can't even begin to imagine what that would be like.

I was really worried for awhile, when I realized that there would be acres of standing water outside our backdoor for the season. How terrible, I wondered, will the mosquitos be? There is always the fear of contracting Dengue here, a mosquito borne disease. Whatever is living in the fields still, frogs in the water, bats in the trees, dragonflies in the bushes, geckos climbing all over my house, must be eating like Kings and keeping the mozies under control because we have not had a problem at all. It's been a great relief!

The plants have grown very high and filled in a lot in the last two months. 

You can see the rice grains growing on the tassels.

I'm very curious to see the harvesting process. We'll share those pictures with you too, when the time comes.

What's out your back window today?