Christmas in Ban Phe

Christmas has been, well, un-Christmas-ey here. Despite the fact that it's 85 degrees, and a Buddhist country, we managed to make the most of it.
We had to work on Christmas eve, but that evening we donned our Santa hats and went to a dinner put on by one of the American Ex-pats in town. I guess he has this dinner every year, and invites all the foreigners to eat. He made a speech thanking everyone, and then we got to eat REAL CHRISTMAS FOOD! There was turkey, stuffing, gravy, apple pie, and mashed potatoes (complete with lumps!)! It was AMAZING. We stuffed ourselves silly. There was also fruit, steamed veggies, ribs, goulash..you name it! It felt so good to eat real Christmas food!
That night we rolled home fat and happy, and watched "the polar express". I was able to find "It's a Wonderful Life" on the internet and was able to watch it, although it was not the same without my mom :( .
Christmas morning, we slept in, and then all called our families (since it was Christmas eve at home). We relaxed most of the day, and in the evening had out gift exchange. Andre, Rachel, Matt, Scott, and I had planned our gift exchange for a while. We drew names from categories (expensive $10, Inexpensive $3, Funny $3, and Found $0). We each had a different person for each gift, and got a gift from each person. We sat under the Christmas tree at the school (which we got to decorate woo hoooo) together to open them, and it was hysterical.
For Expensive, Matt had me and got me this really cute handmade photo album with pictures of all of us in Thailand. For inexpensive, Rachel got me a really cute red watch. For funny, Andre got me a 101 dalmatians mu-mu (not kidding, and where he found this I will never know). Scott had me for found, and found me a pair of socks. It was pretty hilarious overall.
I had Scott for expensive, and got him a bunch of western food (peanut butter, ritz crackers, basically whatever I could find in Thailand). I had Matt for inexpensive, and got him a 6 pack of Singha (the best beer in Thailand), For funny, I had Andre, and got him some hideous boxers at the night market and some thai mentos. And for Rachel's found gift, I went down to the beach and found a bunch of really cool seashells.
Other gifts included a ball of hair, a baby shoe, childrens' underwear, a picture of a ladyboy, and various nice gifts. They were very creatively wrapped, as I am sure you can imagine!
That night, our boss threw a Christmas party for all the staff, and we went to his house for another great dinner. This time there was BBQ chicken, and potato salad (not quite christmas-ey but good). The highlight was PUMPKIN PIE!! It was a miracle. I think he had heard us talking about it all week. It was SO GOOD, and really made it feel like christmas! There were karaoke Christmas songs, and even one of the Thai staff dressed as Santa!
After the party we went down to the beach and lit the floating lanterns to make a wish.
All in all, it wasn't like home, but it was pretty good. I'm glad we all have each other, because Christmas alone would have blown bigtime!
I am not feeling so hot today. I am at work right now, with a pounding headache, stuffy nose, and sore throat. I just feel icky. Maybe it was all the tryptophan. I might duck out early and try to take a recovery nap!
Hope you all had a great Christmas!