Once upon a time, a young boy named Jesus ...

Merry belated Christmas, everyone. Sorry for the delays – a beach vacay pulled me away from my computer. I know, I know, lame excuse.

Somehow, during the one week a year that I normally don’t do much of anything, I actually had a lot of work here in Thailand. This was mainly due to the fact that we were charged with writing, casting, rehearsing, costuming and performing the Christmas nativity play – in English – with young kids who’ve never performed before – starting a week before Christmas.

Oh, and they’ve never done a Nativity play at this school before. Ever. So we had to start with the whole story, and move on from there. “Once upon a time, in a town called Nazareth …” Etc.

I’m sad to say that I had to look up the details of the story. Apparently I was never ever listening in church. I mean, it’s the birth of Jesus – pretty basic, right?

In all honesty, it shouldn’t have seemed that difficult. But the kids don’t care, they don’t speak English, and none of the teachers were really available to help. Plus, Thais are generally less worried about everything, so nothing was put together until the last minute.
And the average temperature managed to rise at least 10 degrees that week, which was awesome for Nate in his Santa costume…. And it just made me mildly miserable.

I was really just crabby because I was homesick. Let’s get real, Lis.

When it was all said and done, the “play” lasted about 10 minutes, and I narrated almost the entire thing. A few kids had a line or 2, but again, the audience doesn’t speak English. I was tempted to throw in a few random lines during the performance, but the director of the school studied in North Carolina for 2 years. So I’m sure she would have noticed, and not been amused.

I did start screaming like a new born baby when our Mary pulled the doll out from under her dress. That was a crowd pleaser.

The kids had a blast, mostly with the costumes and the eyeliner beards. They did a great job, and it was adorable. I didn’t get any good pics of the actual performance, but these are from the dress rehearsal on Christmas Eve.

The rest of the pagent was filled with Jingle Bell dances, the play Snow White, and other various little performances. I still hold firm with my statement – most Thais have no rhythm. But they’re adorable, so who really cares?

I managed to sneak out of wearing a “Santa Baby” costume, and I only had to sing one song at the end of the pagent. Which was widdled down from 5. I told my coordinator he could pick … and he chose “Colors of the Wind,” Vanessa Williams style. Which sucked, because I never got to rehearse, and was to a tune on the karaoke machine that I had never heard.

Thai karaoke machines always change the melody around. Bitches.

No one was watching anyway, and Nate came up and acted it out with me, in Santa gear, to help distract the crowd. It was nice.

After the pagent, some of the teachers and the director were supposed to come over for a “small Christmas gathering” at our house to help us feel less homesick. Leave it to Pan.

She pulled up in front of the house with a small army of students to help cook, clean and manage the “small gathering.” She brought her own grill, soup pot thing, silverware, dishes, food, all the dips you can imagine, whole prawns, meatballs … and a table and chairs and an ice bucket with cups and water and students to move and serve things.

According to her, I was a guest, even though it was in my house. So I really just sat around and did nothing. Fine by me Pan, fine by me.

Then we ate for about 4 hours until the director showed up with presents and homemade stockings. And I got the greatest purse ever. And then we had a photoshoot and ate some more.

Then a random cat snuck in the house. I kicked it out, but Pan decided to feed it. So now it won’t ever.go.away.

But it’s cute. I named it Sapparot, which means “pineapple.” She doesn’t really look like I pineapple – I just like saying that word. We’re friends now.

I did make a single chocolate martini with the awesome kit my Mom sent me. And I made it pretty weak. And still they all could only handle one sip. A small one. But they loved it, and passed it around, and held it in front of their faces and smiled and asked again what it was called. And then they did the same with the bottle of Baileys and the chocolate rimmer shit.

If I’ve done one good thing in my life, it’s to spread the love of the chocolate martini to the rest of the world. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.