Christmas (shopping) Season In Phuket

[maxpower15]

Its my first year in Phuket and its been wonderful so far. I very much enjoyed Loy Kratong the other day, especially the paper lanterns launched into the sky (though I could have done without the dozens of fake plastic laterns dropping en masse into the sea). Today at Tesco I experienced with dread the onslaught of Christmas music, Christmas decorations and staff people wearing Santa hats. This is the sort of thing I hoped to avoid by moving to Thailand, but I apparently it is not to be avoided. I knew there were Western-style malls here and plenty of Christians and/or people who celebrate Christmas to some degree, but I'm wondering if the hyper development here in recent years is responsible for the Christmas music and Santa hats that I suppose I'll have to deal with for the next six weeks.

Will I see this all over the island, like in Phuket Town too or will it be restricted to Tesco, Big C, Central, Patong and the like? Any comments?

[Patong Bob]

You will hear the Christmas Carols....Jinger Ben, Jinger Ben, Jinger au the way...." in the big stores, but that's it. 25 December is just another day in Thailand, no-one cares, but it's a tolerant country, if you want to celebrate you are free to do so.

[kasi]

Just move to Burma. Or perhaps Tehran. If you have that big a problem with christmas

Personally I think the thai girls dressed up in elves hats are rather cute.