Party Preparation
I’m throwing ginormous Christmas parties on Monday and Tuesday, the 26th and 27th. The current headcount is around 240 students, split up between the two days. As I’m sure you can imagine, the planning involved in pulling this off successfully is no easy feat. Before I even left for Laos, I’d been thinking about and working on this thing. This was the week when the stress finally kicked in, and I had to get everything ready.
I went to the markets with Pi Eye, and we made our rounds, trying to cross things off my list. One of the issues with having so many kids attend the party is that everything quickly becomes expensive. Some of the activities I planned involved making crafts with simple craft supplies. I thought this would be a fun, simple, and cheap activity for the kids, but I failed to consider the sheer amount of supplies I needed. Two reams of paper, 500 craft sticks, many packs of crayons, and a very happy store owner later, we had secured most of the supplies. We then went on a wild goose chase to find me some white cups for this snowman slam game, but apparently plain white cups are in low demand as we came up empty-handed. After getting the supplies for my contingency game and picking up a few more decorations, we were finally able to come home.
On Saturday morning, I had a meeting with some of the teachers who are assisting with the party. Pa Lam, Pi Lee, and I went over the plan and schedule. After learning about the different stations, the teachers signed up to help with specific ones. After all the tedious logistics were taken care of, I provided hands-on training in the various rotations. The teachers and I embraced our inner children as we made crafts and colored. I wasn’t expecting them to be too thrilled about it, but they had a blast. Once they figured out how to make paper snowflakes—which is surprisingly way more difficult than I expected—they helped me make a giant garland strand, which we hung by the outside Christmas tree. After lunch, I showed them the bingo boards and taught them how to play a very silly reindeer game.
In the afternoon, Pi Eye and I began the monstrous task of decorating the association. We started with the doors to the multipurpose room. We didn’t do anything crazy—just some red and green tinsel garland—but it was quite a painful task. The cheap 20 baht (about 58 cents) garland wouldn’t stick to the tape, so we had to tie string to different points on the garland and then tape that to the door. Even then, we still had to periodically re-tape it. After we used our new-found hanging techniques on the remaining garland and fences, it was time to move inside. I bought two packs of LED Christmas lights on one of the previous supply runs, so now it was time to figure out what to do with them. After a lot of trial and error, we ended up draping the lights between the columns in the multipurpose room. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but it’s still pretty festive.
In an effort to get some of the kids involved, we decided to decorate the arbor by the pond. They cut up some scrap paper into long ribbons and then arranged them into colorful patterns. My job was to tie the ribbons together in order to make a streamer. (It ended up being a great exercise in trying to remember different knots from Boy Scouts.) The kids then took turns hanging the ribbons on the arbor and the surrounding area. The end result doesn’t particularly scream Christmas, but it still looks good, and everyone had a blast doing it.
I’ve never really planned a party before, so I guess it’s fitting that my first two are for over 120 kids. I’m still quite stressed over the whole thing, but I’ve tried my best to stay level-headed and to throw the best Christmas party I can. Now I’m just praying for some special Christmas magic.
New Room
I moved into a new room this week. My old room is the room that’s used for the TBA’s herbal medicine treatments. I was living there as the herbal center was closed for the rainy season, but it’s opening up in the new year, so they needed the space. I didn’t have any issue with this and told Pa Lam I’d even be happy with just a hammock to sleep in. She laughed, then she told me about the new room she had prepared for me. It was smaller than my other room, but that was to be expected given that it used to be the closet where we kept the folding tables. The room also still needed window panes, so currently, I’m fully exposed to the outside world. I promise it sounds worse than it is. The openness keeps the room much cooler at night, which is a big plus. Additionally, I have a cozy little foyer where I have a desk and chair, which has been very helpful for when I decide to study in the morning or at night. Ultimately, I’d say this room is such an improvement over the last and is quite the morale booster.
It’s my first Christmas away from home, and I’d be lying if I said it was easy. It’s hard to celebrate without my friends and family, and it just feels so wrong not going to church, especially during Christmastide. Nevertheless, it hasn’t been all grim. I’m so thankful for everyone sending encouragement from back home and for my Thai family for trying their best to give me a merry Christmas. I hope you all have a very merry Christmas. Peace and love to all!
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