Rewind the clock 10 months…
Its late February, I’m in the wonderful southern state of Georgia and I’m preparing to go on the World Race. Everyone is asking me about this journey that I’m preparing to embark on and the answer frequently entails a list of the 11 countries I would be traveling to this year. I would always add in, when I was talking about month 6, that I would have a Vietnamese Christmas.
Little did I know what that would actually entail… Last night I found out.
To start off, Vietnam celebrates Christmas on the 24th…not the 25th.
Ok… the day officially gets started at 2pm when we gather in the tiny kitchen to cook dinner. The smells of spaghetti and shrimp scampi and garlic mashed potatoes fill my nose as I begin to make oreo truffles and choco-peanutbutter no bake cookies. (not very Vietnamese but a welcomed addition to the day nonetheless.)
It's 6:30 pm and our dinner is officially ready. 24 of us gather in the lobby of our hotel, bring in a table and chairs and sit down to our feast. We devour every last bite on our plates and then move on to dessert.
A couple of our Vietnamese friends join us for dinner and then take me, Amanda, and Allison out on the town to see the lights in Saigon.
Now… just so you have an idea…this is a city of over 8 million people. It is always crowded in the city but tonight is even more than usual. We walk down the street and then proceed to cross the roundabout. We weave through a sea of motos, buses, taxis and cars. If we hadn’t lived in Asia for the last 6 months this would have totally terrified me, but by now its normal life. Without a second thought we head across the street.
As we reach the other side of the roundabout, we see that the street has been roped off and it is full of people and lights. There are even more street vendors than usual (if that’s even possible) and tonight they are armed with can after can of fake snow. We push through the crowd, sweating because it’s so warm out and dodge the fake snow wars taking place all around us.
We walk through all of this arm and arm with our Vietnamese friends, taking in all the sights. We stop here and there to take photos in front of the lights and decorations and we sing Christmas carols as we walk. We even stop to pose with several different kids dressed in Santa suits. You wouldn’t believe how many parents have dressed their kids like Santa for the night!
As we head back we hear a marching band playing. We stop and listen to them play jingle bells. A huge crowd has gathered around and I notice a little boy, maybe 4 years old, that can’t see anything above our knee caps, so I play a little game of charades and ask his mom if it’s ok if I put him on my shoulders. She joyfully agrees. I place him on my shoulders, and we enjoy a couple more songs before my arm goes numb and we decide to move on.
We return to our hotel about 11pm completely exhausted from our day! I go up to our room, laugh with the girls on my team about the real name of Santa’s 7th reindeer, write Santa a note, wrap a few last minute gifts for the team and snuggle in for a long winters nap…
It was a Christmas that I will NEVER forget!
Merry Christmas from Vietnam!
