The Metropole lights huge Xmas tree

PHUKET CITY: Expats feeling a twinge of homesickness for the sights and sounds of Christmas may wish to pay a visit to The Metropole hotel on Phuket Rd, where Christmas carols fill the air and an enormous Christmas tree was lit up in a ceremony on Thursday night.

Staff at the hotel say the 10-meter-tall tree is the largest in Southern Thailand. The Metropole spent “hundreds of thousands” of baht to decorate it, the lobby and surrounding areas with more than 150,000 decorative lights to mark the Christian holiday.

There is also a second Christmas tree inside the hotel’s main lobby, where good children can be photographed free-of-charge with a saxophone-playing Santa Clause that breaks into Jingle Bells as soon as they sit down next to him.