Bangkok’s Christmas – The Thai capital gets out the tinsel | VIDEO

Christmas is a time to rejoice, a chance for families to come together, for Christians to celebrate and for Thais, to get out the tinsel and dress up Bangkok.

A trip along Bangkok’s shopping centre strip reveals a winter wonderland of eclectic displays and dazzling decorations.

What’s amazing about all this is that Thailand is, mostly, a Buddhist country where 90% of the country visit a temple and worship the Enlightened One, Lord Buddha. The western celebration of Christmas wasn’t really a thing in Thailand until westerners started visiting Thailand in numbers in the 80s and 90s. Since then there’s been a growing trend for shopping centres to go into overdrive with their Christmas decorations.

In some cases it seems to have become a competition between some of the larger shopping centres. And not just along the Sukhumvit shopping strip. It’s now become a thing at any large shopping centre where westerners are likely to congregate.

Of course there’s a thoroughly commercial reason for all this tinsel and fake snow. As a tourist destination, well not so much this year, Christmas is a big time for shopping sales.

And, although we’re sure most Thais have little idea about the stories and meaning behind the Christmas tradition, they certainly get into the spirit of it and love to see Santa as much as anyone else.

Around Bangkok each year you will start to see the roll out of the Christmas decorations any time after October… certainly a lot longer than the 12 days of Christmas and certainly past new year.

Luckily most of this tacky plastic will get re-used each year and usually involve sizeable investments from the centre owners. So expect to see more of Christmas around Thailand’s shopping districts in the years to come.

Enjoy some of CentralWorld’s decorations HERE.