Christmas Eve in Chiang Mai

The entire family desired to be in Chiang Mai Thailand for Christmas for two reasons. One, it's the second largest city in Thailand and therefore we suspected it to have a bit more "western flair". Two, we were told that Chiang Mai has a large Christian missionary population and therefore expected Christmas celebrated with more than just sparkling red and green. That was not entirely the case, more on that in the Christmas Day post up next
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We arrived in Chiang Mai on December 23rd. On December 24th, Christmas Eve we rented bikes and explored town to get our bearings as we like to do each new place we visit. Toward the end of the day Cameron spotted a storefront in Chinatown sellling Christmas decorations and demanded we stop to "check it out."

Picking out decorations

The shop was wall to wall Christmas and Buddhist holiday decor with one aisle about as wide as an airplane's aisle. Robert waited outside with the bikes and the boys and I shopped for decorations to Christmasify or hotel rooms. We pulled out all stops, garland, lights, tree, ornaments, fresh flowers and Santa hats.

Ryan riding with our beautiful fresh Christmas flowers

We biked back to the hotel, received a Christmas greeting from Thai Santa in the hotel lobby, went to our room, cranked the Christmas music and began decorating. It was a sweet time.

Our little Christmas tree.