Aussie Christmas
[I know I’ve written about the events of this Christmas before, but I wanted to turn it into a slightly more journalistic piece of writing, so here it is for your reading pleasure.]
The Australian Christmas is a strange event for a pasty white British guy like myself. For me, Christmas has always meant bitter cold, the kind of rain that soaks you to the bone in 10 seconds, huge dinners, and wishing you had an open fire. For Australia, however, Christmas happens around the beginning of Summer, so it marks the first trips to the beaches, the firing up of backyard barbeques, and the donning of even more extra-strong sunblock to ward off the obscene amounts of UV light that pour through the hole in the ozone layer.
The first thing that struck me about Christmas in Sydney was how utterly out of place the decorations looked. In Hyde Park a proud evergreen tree decorated in the traditional style stood tall to a background of blue skies, glorious sunshine, and - just for good measure - palm trees and other exciting tropical plants. Snowflake stencils had been sprayed onto the windows of Starbucks coffee houses, even though I’ve yet to meet an Australian who has seen a white Christmas. All the usual shop sales banter that I was used to had begun, and indeed, had been pushed further into absurdity, with Georgio Armani stores sporting live models in their windows and a chocolate shop employing town criers to stand outside shouting about the delights on offer. but it all just didn’t seem quite right. One particularly boring. unemployed, penniless day in my flat, I was watching daytime TV and was treated to a cooking programme in which I was shown how to make several delicious light Summer salads to go with my Christmas dinner. Salads? On Christmas day? Is this country insane? When I eat a Christmas dinner I want to eat nothing that hasn’t been roasted, and I want to eat it until I can’t move and regret waking up.
One tradition that I was glad to see carry over into this crazy country of criminals was the art of all the shops that you really, really need on Christmas day closing, and all the ones you don’t remaining open. 7-11, purveyours of iced drinks and over-priced ramen noodles, remain open 24 hours even during the Christmas period, but Coles, the one supermarket we could find in Manly, was even closed Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. You can bet your bottom dollar on the fact that if we’d have needed a slurpee and some instant noodles, or cat food, 7-11 would have unexpectedly closed all of its Sydney branches on the spot.
I can’t write about the past Christmas without mentioning family, of course. Christmas is a time for family all over the world, even in Australia, but this was the first Christmas I’ve ever spent totally away from my kin. A December without a week of amazing food, half-hearted family bickering and sleeping in a strange bed in my mum’s spare room just seemed wrong, but luckily I had met a group of people who were in the same boat, so we got together, watched the Only Fools and Horses Christmas special, cooked an almighty roast, and generally felt very British indeed. The next day we soaked up some Aussie culture by going to a barbeque at a friends house, drinking cold beer and swimming in their backyard pool. I don’t want to knock the Great British tradition, but if someone could arrange some kind of pool in the sunshine for me next year, I’d be most grateful. Thanks.