Christmas in Hanoi

Getting into the true Christmas spirit can be a little difficult for Americans in Hanoi.  Sure, there are holiday decorations everywhere, such as the two decorated Christmas trees in our apartment lobby, the "Merry Christmas" words painted on restaurant windows, and the Christmas street in the Old Quarter.  But there is something missing, which I can't quite put my finger on.  Maybe it is the fact that it is a Buddhist country, or that people still work and go to school on Christmas, or the warm weather, that there aren't a lot of Christmas traditions in Vietnam.

Someone described Christmas in Vietnam as like Valentine's Day in the U.S., and that feels about right.  Or as an Australian blogger wrote, "The Vietnamese love Christmas.  I mean, they love Christmas...[but] if you've ever wondered what Christmas looks like when it has been stripped of all tradition, all cultural and religious meaning, and all personal significance, and this is it: Christmas in Vietnam."  Her blog entry is really good and deserves to be read in full:  http://blogs.crikey.com.au/back-in-a-bit/2011/12/22/christmas-without-the-tradition-and-religion-welcome-to-vietnam/

But it was still really nice for all six of us to just take a break, relax, open some presents, and enjoy the Christmas Day.

The kids opening some presents.  Christmas was light on the gifts this year since we're coming back to America in a few days and we only have so much room in our luggage for everything, but we still had fun:

Our Christmas lunch did not have any of our traditional foods for the holidays, but it did include food that we had been saving just for this occasion:

After lunch we decided to sit back and watch a holiday classic:

We also let the kids pick where we would spend part of the day, so the kids opted for Royal City for some bowling and pizza:

Merry Christmas from Hanoi!