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?

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.

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.