It's Christmas Jim, but not as we know it!

Let me be frank, the above title is mostly just an excuse to post a link to this video . . . but it's also scarily accurate. Christmas in Australia is a different beast altogether! At first it was quite hard to put my finger on it, but I think I'm starting to figure it all out. I mean, obstentsibly, they do the whole Christmas thing, but really, they don't. It's all very different.

First of all there's the food. You can't eat roast turkey and ham in 38 degree heat. Most Australians go for seafood. Similarly, rather than being huddled round the fire, they're swimming in the sea, or the pool, going surfing, doing lots of things that we would probably do if we got half the chance.

Then there's the trees. We have never had a plastic Christmas tree in my house, and if I have my way, we never will. I know they're expensive, I know they shed all over the floor, I know it's annoying to have to go get one every year - but I also don't care. At all. In Australia, they're a bit more practical - they get plastic trees.

This our tree and as you can see, it is not only made of plastic, but also is rather diminutive. It's a token I suppose, erected with minimal fuss and then quietly surrounded by presents. Most of these are for Sandra's two kids. I'm not sure about in your house, but in mine, putting up the tree is an EVENT and can go on for an entire weekend. It involves, not just putting up the tree, but also retrieving the boxes of decorations from the attic, cleaning the living room, finding a tree, arguing over the height of the tree, finally needing to saw off a bit of the top because the tree was too big, then decorating it, unwinding all the lights, while swearing you'll do this before putting them away next year, and then putting up all the household decorations too. When I call it an event, I really do mean that. And there's a huge sense of begrudged achievement that goes with it too. When it's done, you can switch on all the lights, sink into the couch and think - yeah - it's Christmas.

Though, to be totally fair, and honest, I get the decorations from the attic, sometimes go for the tree, get it into the stand and leave Megs and my mam to kill each other. When I return eight or nine hours later the tree is generally up.

Believe me though, you don't really want three people trying to put up a Christmas tree. Not in a house with knives or blunt instruments, or engaged in tasks suck as holding ladders.

It's not like no one makes an effort, there are a few. I saw two houses with out door decorations. There were probably a few more scattered around the place. But even the idea of over-the-top outdoor decorations is subdued over here. People passed comment on this house down below. No would even mention it if it was at home. This of some of those houses you see in the papers back home that look like they've been painted neon with frolicing Santas!

Even the Cairns city tree is sadly lacking. It's not like it's a poor city - they couldn't be with what they charge for stuff! But the tree still suffers a sad lack. The regular, everyday palm trees tower well above it and t's lights are lost in the pulse of the esplanade's bars and restaurants.

Somethings I also noticed was that the charities operating Christmas drives, like the people wrapping presents in the various shopping centres, seemed to expect a lot less money. Most work off a "gold coin" basis, as in one dollar for wrapping up a present.

At both of the ones I used I was offered change for the money I gave them, and when I said no they seemed to think I was a little odd. "It's for charity," I tried to explain to one of them.

I suppose in the run up to Christmas, I only had one really Christmasy moment. Driving home from Mission beach in the rain, the radio, which had been playing complete shit up until then, played a request for a listener . . . and it really did start to feel a little bit like Christmas right there!

On Christmas morning, I even had my stocking, which my mam sent over, stuffed with books and King crisps, because she is awesome! I ate one of the packets of Crisps and then saved the other one for a later occasion when I might actually be hungry.

However, I did miss being woken up RIDICULOUSLY early by Megan, who still seems to think it's a decent idea to get up at 7AM on Christmas, despite the fact that the other 364 days of the year, twelve is a much more realistic time to wake up at. Instead I just sauntered out of the room when I felt like it and opened my presents.

That said, there were a few people around that day who really did appreciate the whole thing, like this young man here, who is handing out presents from our Kris Kindle. Sari got herself a Wii so that was also a source of much amusement. Little Xavier got a few decent presents aswell, including a T-Rex toy that roared and had a real biting action! After an hour and a half of this thing roaring, Shane found the off switch. Xavier, being four, not a retard, just switched it back on and continued to assail us with, what I am sure, is the present we got him. Go us! We're clever!

Now, back to the food. Because food really is at the heart of every Christmas. Because we were stubborn, we had already decided to go with turkey and ham for dinner, and also some seafood. We cooked the turkeys the day before though, and ate them cold on Christmas. Sandra brought the ham, which was, again, cold, and Colleen Holmes brought the Christmas pudding! There were also prawns and some weird thing everyone kept calling a bug, which was kinda like lobster.

And this was all served up with bottles of Cider, because I can get that again. Yay!

One of the things that really struck me was when Dylan and Paul Holmes had to head off to work, on Christmas day. I think it was the lack of fuss, the normality of it, that really weirded me out. At home, you'd be every sympathetic to someone working on Christmas, and they'd be pissed off too, but it was just regular, which for me exemplifies the difference between Christmas here and Christmas back home - it really is just another day here.

St. Stephen's Day - named, by the way, for St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr who was basically murdered for suggesting that Jewish officials should maybe stop killing everyone who thought they sucked at being priests, which is a tad ironic really - was also radically different. Instead of being in my Granny's house with most of my extended family, if not all of them, I was just in the pub of an afternoon, listening to Gibb Todd (see uncle's birthday post). It was good, and we had a laugh, but St. Stephen's day it was not.

It's not like I had a shit Christmas though, it's more like Christmas didn't happen. There were a few signposts for it, but we missed the turn somewhere. It's grand though, to be honest. I don't think it was ever going to really be Christmas over here. It was two grand days all the same though, so I don't feel cheated. It just woulda been nice to sit by the fire watching TV for a few hours! Possibly watching some kind of deliriously happy Disney flick. Now that's what I can call Christmas!

Laters,

Shane