How To Survive (and Enjoy) the Holidays Abroad

        It definitely wasn’t easy, being away from friends and family this time of year as Christmas and New Years came around, and it definitely reminded me of exactly why the holidays are important. I didn’t really miss getting gifts, and of course I missed the food, but I am always missing the food, so that is nothing new. Mostly, I just missed the people. When I heard Christmas music playing in Robinson (my “mall”) as I sat eating a salad two days before Christmas, I felt extra lonely.

            On December 12, I received some gingerbread cookies and Christmas decorations, including a tree ornament, from my grandma. I hung these in my small apartment. On January 2, I opened some Christmas gifts on my bed as my mom watched, via Facetime. Other than this, and a few phone calls and texts, my communication back home was limited.

            And yet, in between those two dates, I did a lot with the people I’ve met here in Thailand. I was kept busy and happy and well-fed, just as I am every year around this time. Here are a few of my tips, post-holidays, for how to enjoy the holidays abroad.

1. Let Your Students Surprise You With Their Effort.

            December 27, I planned a small gift-exchange with my advisory class, M5. I told them, “I’ll provide the ice cream… you, just provide some small snacks.” I imagined the whole thing might take 20 minutes.

            This “gift swap” became a 4-hour ordeal. First, from noon to 1 p.m., the students needed to prepare. Their “small snacks,” became grills and hot plates to cook hot dogs and meat; blenders to create mocktails with soda water and grenadine and ice and soda; and cups with different layers of jelly desserts, stacked on top of one another, as well as two cakes and rice and a huge pot filled with curry.

            At 1 o’clock, I asked one student if they had class, and they said, “Oh, teachers gave us the afternoon off, so we could party.” Of course they did. And rather than lamenting the fact that these students couldn’t go home during this unexpected free time, they were thrilled to be at school; playing music and hanging out with 29 of their closest friends—what would they do at home? The students kept delaying everything because they wanted to stay at school and party forever, until finally close to 3 p.m. I said, “Can we do the gift swap now?”

            Then, of course, we had to take pictures: pictures of me handing one gift off to the person who pulled my number, and then a picture of the two of us together, and then a picture of that other person handing my gift to me, when my name was called; we needed group pictures and solo shots and candids and video footage of us all, both before we opened the gifts, and then after we opened the gifts, and also while we were opening the gifts. Finally, around 3:30, I slipped out the door and returned to my desk.

           This was probably the sweetest “Christmas” party I’d been to, here in Thailand. Despite how drawn-out it was, it was so sweet, watching all of these 17-year-old students enjoy creating an atmosphere that they probably would not find at home later that afternoon simply because these families do not celebrate Christmas (or any of their holidays) quite the same way we celebrate ours. It made me thankful that next year, I will be surrounded by my family on December 27, but that this year, my students, with the mocktails and cakes and gift-wrapped toys, had created an incredibly appropriate substitute.

2. Let Christmas Look Different This Year.

            This year, I spent Christmas on top of Phu Kradueng mountain in Loie with my Thai co-teacher and her best friend. This meant, at 4:30 a.m. as I brushed my teeth in a crowded public bathroom in preparation for an early morning trip to see the sunrise on top of the mountain, it only vaguely occurred to me just what day it was: “Oh. Merry Christmas, by the way, Teacher Ying.”

            Any other morning of my life, I’d awakened just about as early for a completely different kind of experience. But as I watched, for the first time in my life, the sunrise over the Thai landscape, I nonetheless felt I’d been given all the gifts I needed. Last year, the most exercise I got on Christmas was my walk from the couch to the table to grab another piece of pie; this year, I walked 17 miles at the top of a mountain on Christmas. As I walked, I reminded myself to be thankful for this opportunity, and I also knew all the Christmases in my future will look different, thanks to this one—I didn’t want anything except my family by my side, and rather than make me sad, this made me happy… for the first time, I wasn’t envious of my friend’s gifts or anxious to get to the mall, to use my gift cards in order to collect more, more, more.

3. Let Yourself Eliminate Certain New Years Resolutions.

            This time last year, I’m pretty sure I was making the same New Years resolutions everyone in America makes every year: lose weight; be healthier (skinnier); be more successful, make more money; fall in love.

            This year, being here in Thailand, all I can really hope for is that I find ways to always adventure as I am adventuring now, and to feel as fulfilled in whatever I do post-Thailand as I feel teaching here in Thailand. Teaching is not easy; it is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it is also overwhelmingly fulfilling. There isn’t a day that I ask myself, “Wait, why is this important?” I can see it, all the time.

            I see it when a student, who has received an A on a test, has written object + verb + subject next to “passive tense,” and then erased his own memorized reminder… this is a reminder that I taught him, even though I was unsure, at the time, if any of my students were listening.

            I see it when another student corrects herself midsentence as she’s saying, “Do… does, I mean, he go there often?”

            I hear it when I hear my students actually laugh at a joke Matt Damon says in Good Will Hunting; despite how little they understand, they still surprise me by understanding that.

            And I hear it when I am teaching a passage from Looking for Alaska and my students shout out, in unison: “OH! The narrator means Alaska is not dead, doesn’t he? He means she’s in heaven, right? Right?”

4. Let Yourself Feel Happy and Blessed at Midnight on New Years, No Matter Who Surrounds You.

            I was so grateful to be surrounded by some of my best friends here in Thailand this New Year’s as the clock struck midnight, and as we jumped up and down at a Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan, their faces were the first ones I looked for. But then, as the clock struck 12:01, I looked further. All around me, 30,000 people were jumping up and down for the very same reason I was. Lights flashing, music blaring, people cheering… we were all celebrating the same moment. I mean, here we were, on a beach in Thailand, hundreds of foreigners from all different corners of the globe, each equally hopeful that beginning 2017 like this meant that 2017 would turn out to be a pretty exciting year. And this was the energy I fed off of this New Years as 2016 became 2017. And I promised myself, if I could not find a way to hold onto this overwhelmingly optimistic feeling for all of ’17, at the very least, I’d hold onto it for the night.