Who asked about Australian Christmases?

[TheSandgroper]

It's lovely. It's light and bright and warm. It means open windows with breezes or closed windows with aircon. It means touring the streets and houses during Advent with all the Christmas lights, pockets full of change for the charity of the day.

It means end of school, reports and summer holidays. It means your kids running around the back yard in the nuddy with lashings of sunscreen on. It means picnics in the park for Carols by Candlelight. It means going to Mass in light, bright clothes rather than thick coats, usually black.

It means opening presents in the sunshine. The garden is full of flowers and the birds are singing. It might mean a trip down the beach before dinner or after dinner. Or a dip in the pool. Or blowing up the inflatable pool when it is stiff and fresh.

It means It means

It means
Bush Christmas (Dave Martin)
...Auntie Flo sprawls like a lizard
On the back verandah floor ...

It means DH lights the Weber at 6 am so I can put the turkey on before 7, all done by 10 and the rest is easy. The house doesn't heat up that way. We have a mixed dinner of warm meats, cold salads. Others have lots of seafood (DF doesn't like it but he won't always be here). Best friend just has sausages and steak on the bbq.

It means everything shuts down for three weeks. On Boxing morning, everyone hits the road and the caravan parks etc fill up. Or, they watch the cricket from the 'G. Or they watch the start of the Sydney-Hobart.

Our family has its get-together at one of the big parks between Christmas and New Year. If you are around, you come. We can manage up to 80 people these days. BYO picnics with paddling or swimming. Lots of chat.

I have done a number of cold Christmases. They are dark, dreary and abnormal. God, I love my Christmas

I hated my Christmas in hot weather, it didn't seem like Christmas at all.

Dark, dreary and abnormal? Really?

Christmas is the time of year that makes me most homesick. It's completely wrong (to me), to be sweating by the pool on Christmas Day. It's the part I like least

No idea where you are but it’s not how Christmas is here.

Christmas means sweltering heat, the aircon not coping, thunderstorms and blackouts.

You can’t go outside as your eyeballs sweat so sitting in the pool or paddling pool isn’t possible. You can’t get to the beach because everyone else has the same idea and running around in the nuddy in the garden isn’t advisable due to snakes and killer magpies.

The end of school just means the kids are worn out, miserable and generally over it.

Carols by Candlelight are generally cancelled because of the bushfires or if they do run you have to be there hours before they start to get anywhere to sit - sunstroke is not your friend.

Boxing Day is a right off if you’re trying to travel as there are always accidents and hold ups due to the number of people travelling and cars overheating.

It means having to go out at 6am on Christmas Eve to stand any chance of shopping before the temps hit the high 30s and you can’t find a car parking space.

It means kids constantly complaining about how “it doesn’t feel like Christmas - it’s too hot” and “why doesn’t the wifi work” - that’ll be because every bloody household in NSW is trying to use the internet and it’s probably less reliable than if we were in Siberia.

It means none of the Christmas Carols actually make sense, and the Christmas albums fill you full of rage when they talk about ‘snow, ice and bloody snowmen’.

It means people whinging about the price of prawns, the fire bans and selection boxes melting.

And worst of all it means fuel prices going up by around 15c per litre.

Happy bloody Christmas!!

MaitlandGirl

As a Sandgroper, I'm over t'other side so total firebans for 6 months of the year anyway, no thunderstorms normally, no 6 am available at Coles over here, either (even if Westfarmers is hq'ed here) and, if NBN puts its white vans away, we might have internet on the day, too.

We're not part of the NEG network so rarely have blackouts (I'm not on a property), I can walk to my local carols and, having grown up in a coastal tourist town, nothing on earth makes me leave the house on Boxing day.

I sound rather smug but I don't mean to be. I still much prefer Christmas here to the alternative, though.

Rather smug?? Understatement of the year
I've never read anything so over the top in my life. Were you on something when you wrote that?
I've experienced both and think Christmas seems more magical in cold weather, preferably snow.

I hate Christmas in Australia.

Maitlandgirl sums it up nicely. We have the added bonus of ravenous hordes of mosquito waiting for any chance to bite the crap out of us.

Freaking abominable time of year.

I do love Christmas in Perth, and definitely enjoy both. I think we’re lucky that we get to experience both and love them equally.

We are planning to go next Christmas as it will have been 3 years since Christmas was spent with DH’s family, and 4 years since Christmas in Oz.

Oh no! I have Aussie relatives - they are always complaining about the sweltering heat in the summertime whist we are having a lovely Christmas. Calling them at Christmas brings me down so I need another drink afterwards

Summer is wonderful enough - it doesn't need Christmas to brighten it up.

I like Winter Solstice - celebrating passing the shortest darkest day of the year. It makes sense for it all to happen around then - lights, trees, presents, cosying- up and staying warm. All the references to snowmen, reindeer in the snow, etc.

I am also in Perth and love it. Beach in the morning. Throw the turkey on and eat outside in the sunshine. As I have never had a cold Christmas to compare to I but really do love the weather over here

LOL remember, OP, that a British Christmas is perfect and don't you dare see life any other way. It's fine for threads to diss Aussie Christmases every year but don't bite back!

I certainly didn't run around naked in my Backyard at Christmas or any other time of the year, used to love watching Carols by Candlelight, going to midnight mass, playing cricket Christmas day with my cousins and going to the Boxing day Test match at the MCG. I cant remember too many really hot Christmases as a kid. One of my favourite things to do in Melbourne is the Myer Christmas windows always a fantastic story and something I am so glad my children got to experience even if only once.

Too much of a good thing?

www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-drought/despair-for-australian-farmers-as-drought-kills-livestock-idUSKCN1LE0F1

The worst drought in living memory is sweeping through Australia’s east, the country’s main food bowl, decimating wheat and barley crops and leaving grazing land parched

I liked Christmas growing up in NZ and cooking the turkey on the BBQ, but it doesn't come close to how much I like Christmas over here. I love a winter Christmas now

I’m Australian and I love a hot Christmas, I don’t know that I would feel it was a proper Christmas if it wasn’t hot! But it’s what we are all used to I suppose.

But I’m really pleased to read all the responses here....I want to experience a winter Christmas one day, and I hope it is as magical as everyone says and books/movies show. Looking forward to it!

Did anyone ask about an Australian Christmas? 🤔

It sounds like you really enjoy Christmas in Oz OP but you have to accept it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea.

There's a reason why Christmas is depicted as cold and snowy in virtually every Christmas movie- it's what the majority associate with it.

A hot Christmas with sand and BBQ's is my idea of hell.

It sounds nice as you put it, but I prefer a cold Christmas. It’s never cold enough in London if you ask me. And the cosiness of impending Christmas keeps me going through cold, wind and rain. I like a relaxed summer without the stress of Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong - I love living here and there are definite benefits to having a hot Christmas but even seeing kids playing out on their new bikes, bouncing on new trampolines and being able to play outside with various new toys can’t make up for the fact it doesn’t feel like Christmas.

There’s a reason Christmas in July is so popular with expats.

After living here in NZ for 15 years and although I completely appreciate the amazing weather we have compared to the UK - Christmas still just doesn't feel like Christmas - to me it should be cold, dark, snowing and an excuse to stay inside and eat/drink your own body weight.

As much as i love living here, i still would prefer a winter Christmas. My kids would probably hate it however as they can't stand being cold.

I've lived in Perth for five years and absolutely love Xmas here! Its summer hols so we all have at least two weeks off. The weather is glorious, we go to the beach in the morning on Xmas day with a bottle of champagne and meet up with friends, and then come home and stick the barbie on and laze by the pool, its heaven. But to me the best bit about Xmas here is that its all so low key compared with the UK or Ireland. The shops don't get crazy busy at all, except maybe the last few days and its just so much more relaxing. I don't miss the freezing damp weather and long dark days at all! And if I fancy a roast dinner, there's always Xmas in July!

Prawns and fresh oysters. Mangos by the tray. Swimming in an almost empty beach.* Champagne and tall cocktails. Love warm Christmas

*no I’m not telling which one but we regularly get a Christmas swim in a local beach with no one else.

This was always going to end badly OP! MN never has anything good to say about Australia 🙄

But having spent the last 8 years in the northern hemisphere for Christmas I came home last Christmas and bloody loved it! No snow, no short dark days, no feeling like I could and should eat all the left overs 🙂

It's hard for dh who's Irish to feel like it's Christmas when he's here but it's my normal and it's great!

Another one from perth. Love having all the family over for a bbq. Hate it when it gets too hot. Carols by candlelight is such a great community event. Schools over for the year so kids are relaxed. We had a snowy xmas last year and i lost all feeling in my toes.

Also in Perth and I love love love Christmas time over here. I lived in the north of England for many years and the hectic-ness around Christmas, fighting at Tesco for the last bag of parsnips, the over spend and consumption (I find AUS much less materialistic generally) I don't miss.
I did love a white Christmas, though those were rare.

Christmas for me in Perth means quick trip to the beach for an early morning swim back for bacon and eggs on the barbecue and a glass of champagne and orange juice. Paddling pool is put up with morning family comes over and just booze, snooze, play board games, run around in the sun slippery dips for the kids... Prawns and seafood for lunch followed by an evening walk and back outside to sit on the patio and talking to the early hours of Boxing Day.

With you, OP. And thanks for Tim
Minchin, I teared up.

I guess if you live in Perth it's pretty sunny most days, so nothing special or different about Christmas - just the food and drink? I like cold weather, the celebration of the shortest days of winter passing. That's not materialistic at all.

My sister is out there at the moment and as fair-skinned as I am, so she can't spend too much time out in the sun anyway. Doesn't enjoy Christmas there.