Spending Christmas with another family is a bit of a challenge. The music playlist is not what you expected, the food doesn’t taste like what you’re used to, and you don’t feel that confident interrupting the person who is talking nonsense. Everything is the same, but different. But imagine the holiday season on the other side of the Earth… It’s blazing, Santa is wearing shorts, and the neighborhood python popped into your house to say hi. Yes, I’m talking about Australia. For your understanding of one of the most popular celebrations in the world, here are some tweets that sum up what it is really like in the Southern hemisphere.
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In Australia, Christmas comes in towards the beginning of the summer holidays—Children have their summer holidays from mid-December to early February, so some people might even be camping at Christmas.
According to WhyChristmas, one of the largest Christmas information sites on the web, Australians hang wreaths on their front doors and sometimes go out Christmas carol singing on Christmas Eve. It’s also common there to decorate your house and garden with Christmas Trees and Christmas lights. Sometimes, the neighborhood might even have little competition to see who has got the best display. The neighbors also might visit each other to look at each other’s light displays at night.
But Australians also decorate their houses with bunches of ‘Christmas Bush’, a native Australian tree with small green leaves and cream-colored flowers. In summer, the flowers turn a deep shiny red over a few weeks (generally by the week of Christmas in Sydney). Poinsettia plants are also popular plants used as decorations.
On Christmas Eve, fish-markets are often full of people trying to buy their fresh seafood for Christmas day. Some like to have the ‘traditional’ Christmas pudding but there might also be cold desserts like pavlova and trifle.
Most families try to be home together for Christmas and eat the main meal at lunch. People might have a cold Christmas dinner or a barbecue with seafood such as prawns and lobsters along with the ‘traditional English’ food. Families normally exchange presents on Christmas Day.
On Boxing Day, people go and visit their friends and often have barbecues with them at the beach. There’s a Yacht race from Sydney to Hobart, Tasmania, held on Boxing Day too.
Australian Christmas sounds like a blast!
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