Christmas musings.......

For those of you who don't know, Christmas in Australia is in the middle of summer. This means that it is usually very hot, no snow for us! Funnily enough, when you look at Christmas decorations in Australia, we have Santa in his wooly red suit, snowmen, snowflakes, reindeers, all things cold! We just don't seem to be able to adapt to Christmas in summer. I must admit, that over the last couple of years I have noticed some decorations which are trying to reflect summer.

This is more like what Santa Claus should be like in Australia!

A lot of Aussies do spend Christmas Day at the beach, eating prawns and swimming, but a lot also still do the traditional Christmas dinner, of roast turkey and all the trimmings. I remember, years ago, when my mum announced, no more hot Christmas lunch, salads from this day forward! Shock, horror, this was so out there, back then. Nowadays I always serve cold Christmas lunch, though there is one hot item that will never disappear from my Christmas spread, plum pudding with all the trimmings. I think if I ever told my family, no pudding, there would be mutiny. It has to be made slightly differently to cold countries. I can't hang it in the cloth it is cooked in as it goes mouldy in the heat, so it has to be kept in the fridge, but other than that it is a traditional pudding.

Christmas lights decorate houses, same as in the northern hemisphere, but here we have to worry about summer storms, not snow! So, even though it is hot here, we still celebrate pretty much like the rest of the world.