Christmas & Boxing Day

Christmas is just not the same when it's hot!!! In fact I would go as far as to say it is downright weird!!

We were invited by Elyssa (Liss) and Tim to join them at the Royal Varuna Yacht Club which is about two hours drive from Bangkok and is set in a secluded beach in Jomtien - We were struggling to decide what we were going to do for Christmas and were debating on whether to just go for a curry so we jumped at the chance (It was really kind of them to invite us). We had to be up early - so what did we do? Yep we sat up till after midnight drinking wine and talking to people on Skype....then we decided to open our pressies since we would be too knackered to do it in the morning so it was a late one. Santa was good to both of us - Chris got a new digital camera, a t-shirt, a silver key ring and the picture that I drew for him (He liked it - phew!!) and I got an ipod, perfume, a CD and a beautiful pashmina.

Krung, Liss's Driver (I know.....It's another world), arrived at 8am to pick us up, Christmas Day is not a holiday in Thailand so he was working as normal, and he drove us up to Jomtien to join Liss, Tim, Chris, Cathy and their two kids. I have to say that the journey was fantastic - Chris and I got in the car, said hi, then promptly fell asleep....when we both surfaced we had arrived (I really hope neither of us snored too loudly - The Creature from the Black Lagoon, I mean Chris, is known for not making a peep in his sleep!!). The Yacht Club was lovely. Liss was a bit worried that we were going to find the sleeping area too basic, it was a wooden Chalet style room which had an en-suit bathroom and air-con, Chris and I have definitely slept in hotels that were worse.....I don't know what she was worried about. The clubhouse was really nice as well and had beautiful views of the sea, a cool sea breeze and was very relaxing.

We got ourselves organised, once all the introductions were made - did get a little confusing having two Chris's, and headed along the road to the Sheraton where we had booked to have Christmas dinner. It was a beautiful day - we had dinner looking out over the sparkling blue sea, surrounded by palm trees, boats sailing past..... (Not that I am trying to rub it in or anything!!). The meal was buffet style which was especially good for Chris and Cathy as it meant that they could tend to the kids without feeling any pressure to be at the table before the next course arrived etc. The food was great - they had a good selection of starters (Pate, salads, tomato and mozzarella, different breads etc) and even had turkey, glazed ham and cranberry sauce - although the Thai's never manage to get it quite right.....there were no roast potatoes.....there were mashed potatoes ('That's ok' I hear you say.....) in a creamy sauce (Erm....mashed potato in a cream sauce??) with scallops (I don't know why!!) but they had a yummy selection of deserts so all was forgiven (Well, by me anyway......Chris is still hankering after roast potatoes). Oh, and talking about not getting it quite right - we did have a very thin, short Thai Santa to entertain the kids (I just want to point out that a false bushy white beard does not look good on a Thai!!) followed by a clown. Now, I’m not scared of clowns but I think I may have a slight fear of them now....it was like the black and white minstrels gone wrong and to make matters worse he kept bursting the balloons he was using to make balloon animals. (I'm shuddering at the thought) - We've not got any photos but I’ll check with Cathy and Liss and if they have any I will post one.....you really have to see how freaky this was.

After dinner we moved out onto the terrace and sat in the afternoon sun drinking wine and Champagne - which we thought was going to be very expensive but we had brought our own alcohol and the hotel only charged us corkage for one bottle per couple - as you can see from the pictures we got through more than that. I really like the photo of Gay Bono and The Edge aka Tim and Chris. (Sorry Liss - I did warn you that it was going on the blog!!)

We then headed back to the Clubhouse at the yacht club where we continued our Christmas celebrations. We ate more food (I know....I don't know where we put it either) and drank more and were generally merry. We enjoyed speaking to everyone back home although Liss, Tim and Chris (Cathy had gone to bed by this point) were very disappointed that the camera wasn't working when we spoke to the gathering of the Burns's (I think Australian Chris wanted proof that my Chris's sisters were both small with red hair.......is Margaret still blond?).

Boxing Day was fantastic (and hangover free!!). We lazed about at the club, went for a walk on the beach (Yes, ok....that was the nice way of saying that we went for a paddle), watched Tim trying to keep the kids entertained with his kite flying expertise (Actually he was pretty good - anytime I’ve tried it's been tangled within seconds!!) and contemplated doing something more energetic (Which never actually happened). We did have a very funny conversation about language during which we discovered that no-one in Australia actually says 'Throw another shrimp on the barby', that the English are known as 'Pomms' and to have a 'Pommy Shower' is to only put deodorant on (Of course being Scottish we were not offended in the slightest at this term....in fact we are thinking of adopting it :-)) and that they call swimming costumes 'Bathers'. I have to say that they were killing themselves laughing at the fact that in Scotland 'a poke' means a bag and that you can ask for 'A poke of chips', that when you ask for 'A single fish' at the chippy you will get fish without any chips but you will get two of them (I know.....your now thinking 'and you have the cheek to slag off Thailand for being weird') and that we have so many words for excrement i.e. jobbie, keech, shite etc (For those of you who are not Scottish). Talking of language we took a picture of the rules next to the pool which we thought were funny. Anyway, a good time was had by all and we were assured on Boxing Day that Chris hadn't kept anyone awake with his snoring.......ah, the wonders of a few buckets of wine.