The chicken’s in the oven (a turkey would’ve been way too much for just two of us) and the potatoes are roasting ;) the smell of fresh thyme is wafting in to the study. Yum.

Christmas eve in Europe, where I come from, is always one helluva frenetic day – everyone rushing to get their last minute presents and the last ingredients for Christmas dinner – that extra cinnamon for the rice pudding and so on. The streets are normally crowded and the queues at the supermarket are looooong.

I never imagined that I’d experience anything like it here in Thailand… but surprisingly today I did.

I hadn’t planned to cook Christmas dinner this year, but then this morning I thought hell we were going to have some kind of Christmas and hence started my mad rush to get a chicken, stuffing, potatoes etc. Central at Chitlom was packed, Tops had enormous queues – all the potatoes were SOLD OUT, and the skytrain was unusually crowded for 3.00pm.

Rushing over to Emporium in search of potatoes, I found a group of school boys singing “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”

…and everyone was rushing around with bags full of presents and at the Villa supermarket queues of people were waiting for their cooked turkeys.

It was nice, to actually feel like it was Christmas even if I am in a Buddhist country.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS Y’ALL!