The House Warming Party in Thailand .
See the images.
The final Buddhist ceremony for the house.
Well, I think it is the last ceremony.
I have little to do with the organization of the house warming party. The ladies of the village took over and seemed to know how everything should be, I sat back
There were 240 guests and 9 monks invited. There was also a troop of young dancing girls in traditional costume.
Everything ran smoothly and I cannot think of anything that should have been different.
The total cost of the house celebration would have been less than $2,000 but money that we received from the gift envelopes was near $1,000, I really don’t know how much we spent, I was running on empty before my next payments from Australia but that has been the way it was throughout the entire construction of the house.
We hired caterers who supplied great food plus all chairs, tables etc. and the big marquee.
The beer, whisky, water, ice cream, flowers, gifts for monks and nick knacks were all supplied by us.
PARTY LATE
Thais are very much concerned with making a good impression, a good impression was made here and all were graceful and well behaved from start to finish.
The village men put in a day preparing for the party by cleaning up a paddock for parking, chopping down trees that hid a view of one side of the house setting up security fences ready to direct traffic. Meanwhile the ladies made traditional candles and ornaments ready for the ceremony to be held by the monks.
Well before the date the family visited the local temples to arrange a day that their chosen monks were all available. I noticed the day was set in the month that drinking alcohol was not frowned upon, for 3 months every year the people of the village refrain from drinking alcohol. I don’t but no one worries about it.
Nook, the young lady of the family chose a monk because from when she was a little girl she remembered him giving her 20 baht, about 40 cents.
