It's Beginning to Feel a lot Like Christmas...

Since Thai people don't celebrate Christmas and Thailand has never had snow, you need to look for other things that make you think of Christmas. The holiday that feels like Christmas most here in Thailand is the Loy Gratong Festival, although there is no family get togethers, turkey, presents or celebration of Christ's birth. Loy Gratong is a 3 day festival during November's full moon. The most important night is the night that the moon is full. On that night, when it starts to get dark, people come out of their homes and light candles all around their property. When all the candles are lit, it looks like Christmas lights but the lights only last for one night. Although it kinda feels like Christmas, the reason for having this festival has nothing to do with Christ's birth. People light candles in order to bring blessings on the people living in the house and so that people will have a longer life. On this night, there are lots of fireworks and firecrackers (which are illegal all year except during Loy Gratong). People like to throw firecrackers at people's feet to scare them, especially foreigners. Thai people do this for fun, Chinese people do it to scare off any evil spirits. Unlike North America where they have noise laws, here the celebration and the noise goes on until all hours of the night. You just have to put up with it.