Today is Loi Krathong in Thailand. Loi Krathong is a festival celebrated mainly in Thailand and Laos paying respect to water spirits. The event is meant to thank the spirits for allowing our use of the water and to apologize for polluting the water. Individuals pay their respects to the spirits by floating a small Krathong or float down a river or body of water. The traditional float is made of banana leaves, flowers, candles and incense. Usually people will put a baht coin into the float as well.
Loi Krathong takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. In the Western calendar this usually falls in November. This year the festival just happened to fall on the day before Thanksgiving.
Sammy and Jack celebrated Loi Krathong at school today. The school asked that they wear traditional Thai outfits. Since we had only one day’s notice we selected their elephant pants and “bike for dad” shirts (bike for dad is a huge event taking place in December in honor of the king’s birthday). These are NOT traditional Thai outfits, but our Thai nanny assured us it would be appropriate. After school we floated Sammy’s Krathong that he got from school on the pond at Lumpini park. Shortly afterwards, it started to rain…the water spirits were pleased!
Will Travel with Toddlers 
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