Department stores in Thailand put up Christmas trees, snowmen, advertise Christmas specials. In November, 800+ school children formed a record-breaking human Christmas tree at a mall in Bangkok. In India, you can buy Christmas meals at restaurants, carolers sing in the malls, and cities are decorated for the holidays. Indians dress like Saturday Evening Post Santas.

Thailand is 94% Buddhist and 5% Muslim, and only about 2% of Indians are Christian.

Christmas is big stuff all over Asia, with one thing missing: the birth of Jesus. “Christmas in India, and Asia in general, has undergone something of a transformation in recent decades, with countries around the region embracing the gift-buying, food, decorations, and singing—pretty much everything but the religious commemoration of the birth of Christ.”