Aussie Christmas

Dec 10 2017, 9:57 pm in Aussie Christmas, Christmas in Summer

 Aussie Christmas!

     Christmas day in Australia is the middle of summer.  The only “white snow” we see is icing sugar dusted on top of fruit mince pies.

     As a child, Christmas was filled with excitement. 

       The lead up to Christmas was crammed with fun preparation, being the end of the school year, we would spend the last few days of school making Christmas crafts, classroom parties and singing Aussie Christmas carols.   Hallways would echo with “six white boomers”, “Aussie jingle bells and my favourite “carol of the birds “Orana”.  Orana is aboriginal for dawn, or welcome.

     Managing Christmas Eve must have been an additional challenge for my parents, not only were we too excited for sleep, but day light savings meant it did not get dark until 9pm.   I can remember lying in bed, wide awake, listening out for the sound of sleigh bells and not able to sleep in a bedroom where the sun was peeking at me through the curtain cracks teasing “I can see father Christmas!”

  Christmas day, when it arrived meant an early rise, matching outfits for my sisters and I from our grandmother and off to church.  After church, it was breakfast, often with cold meats on bread, and then finally we were able to file into the living room to see what was under the Christmas tree.   

     Christmas lunch was still a sit down roast meal, a tradition hard to avoid with an English father and German mother, but we dined in the garden.  After plum pudding we spent a leisurely afternoon playing with our new outdoor toys or splashing in the wading pool in new togs.  

     Sometimes we would be interrupted with the siren blaring, and my father, volunteer fire fighter racing off to the fire station to fight fires that were out of control in the hot dry bush heat.  We waited nervously, watching the orange light from the encroaching flames on the mountainside for warning of whether we needed to evacuate.

 I grew up and had my own family

                      and now live in the tropics. 

Christmas day lunch had to transform to cold meat, salad, seafood and Pavlova (meringue with whipped cream and fruit).  We spend the day swimming in the pool and lazing under the air conditioner. 

I am blessed to have “Peter Pan” children who even as young adults are still captivated by the magic of Christmas and rush to the Christmas tree to see if father Christmas has left them a stocking with their name on it.

     The day after Christmas, Boxing Day is for relaxing.  We sit watching television for the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race, eating left overs. 

  My own tradition is to complete a scrapbook page for each family member of their achievements over past twelve months.  It allows me to recognise and celebrate all that has happened for each family member, and creates a sense of closure to the year in the days leading up to the New Year.

“Aussie jingle bells

Oh jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way

Christmas in Australia

On a scorching summers day!

Jingle bells, jingle bells

Christmas time is beaut!

Oh what fun it is to ride in a

Rusty Holden Ute!”

                                                                                           Liza Roberts

     Liza is an Australian social worker and successful social entrepreneur with three teenage children and four cats who is harnessing increased time and the space to extend on her writing. 
     Previously published co-author of social work practice programs, Liza is putting pen to paper in a new genre.  Filled with sentimentality and adoration of human resilience, Liza incorporates paranormal, fantasy and spiritualist concepts and philosophies into her fiction writing.  Writing sets her soul free and allows her imagination to wander, creating new landscapes and worlds for her readers to explore. 

You can read Liza’s flash fiction, Rise of Hylzarie, right here. Just search recent posts for her name.