Christmas in Australia

Christmas cards almost always show scenes in the snow. In Australia, Christmas falls in Summer. More than that, it falls smack bang in the middle of the holidays when most of us seem to be on a beach somewhere. My earliest childhood memories of Christmas are of sand - sand in my hair, in my sandals and in my tomato sandwiches.

Snow has rarely fallen at Christmas though we have experienced all the seasonal quirks of Summer Downunder, the electrical storms, floods, hailstorms, cyclones and terrible bushfires.

On Christmas Eve in 1974, Cyclone Tracey ravaged Darwin and by the evening of Christmas Day, 70 percent of Darwin was destroyed. As for bushfires, they've been part of the Australian landscape for millions of years, indeed, some of our flora and fauna depend upon it, but it's a real shocker for us who live with it.

Keep your hat on Depending on where you are in Australia, daily temperatures range from 25-45 degrees celsius (77 to 113 fahrenheit) on the mainland while Tasmania, in the far south, is always slightly cooler.

While people in the northern hemisphere are decorating fir trees and decking their halls with boughs of holly, here in Australia we have the bright and beautiful Christmas Bush, Ceratopetalum gummiferum.

This lovely shrub has white star-like flowers in late spring followed by beautiful reddened, swollen calyces in summer, just in time for Christmas.

You can decorate your whole house with Christmas Bush. If it doesn't grow in the backyard, a neighbour is sure to have some and, at the florist, bunches are cheap enough to buy in armfuls. As you can see by the photo above, the Christmas Bush is a wonderful vision of red.

This lovely example of our native flora is the parasitic Nuytsia floribunda, bursting with brilliant yellow flowers, to greet both Summer and Christmas.

We call this the West Australian Christmas tree, and the golden blossoms are an absolute delight to see.

We have three choices for Christmas Dinner.

• One choice is to get out of bed on Christmas morning, as our grandmothers did, and start preparations at 5.00 am before it gets too hot to have the oven on. We have five hours at most before the heat drives us out of the kitchen and, sometimes, if it's going be to a scorcher of a day, we can only cook for three hours.


• A second choice is to have a barbecue. Toss a few salads together and throw some prawns on the barbie.


• Or we could pack a picnic lunch and head for the nearest beach. Seeing as most of us live along the coastline, there are picnics and parties galore.

Once upon a time, Christmas Lunch on the beach meant packing cold chicken, tomatoes, watermelon and lemonade in the Esky and laying a couple of rugs and beachtowels on the sand. These days, it's a more complicated ritual.

The modern Christmas Lunch à la plage consists of toting at least one portable barbecue, one esky for the prawns and salad, and another for the grog, pavlova and sunblock. No one has ginger beer in their esky these days, it's all local wines now, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay or a sparkling pinot noir.

You need shade all the time in Australia and little villages of mini tents spring up all over the beach with barbecues and gas bottles everywhere.

Camping by the Beach
The image of Santa with his surfboard, from an old postcard, brings instant memories to me of many a Christmastime spent camping in the ti-trees by the beach. The old-style caravans and tents, the singlets on the line and the wooden steps leading down to the sand are just like my childhood holidays - minus the reindeer of course.

Camping by the beach, or staying at one of the numerous caravan parks along the rivers, is still a popular budget holiday for families.

One thing you must have for Christmas is The Great Australian Pavlova .

Bondi Beach in Sydney is a popular spot all year round, and especially so at Christmas. It's a very little beach, just half a mile of sand, and when you have 40,000 people turn up on Christmas Day it's all one big party. There's no room to play a game of cricket on the beach on Christmas Day.

It's traditional for international visitors who happen to be in Sydney at Christmas time to go to Bondi Beach. Backpackers in particular swarm over the sands. If you're thinking of coming along, remember Bondi Beach is an alcohol free zone.

And don't forget the zinc cream ........

Yabbies are best treated simply to keep the delicate taste and texture.


1 kg fresh yabbies
1 avocado, halved, stone removed and flesh chopped
4 cups mixed salad leaves

Dressing
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon caster sugar
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Put the yabbies in a deep bowl in the freezer for 1 hour. Boil a large pot of salted water, add yabbies, cook for 5 minutes. Drain and refresh in cold water to stop the cooking process.

Twist off the head, cut through the centre of the underside of the tail and gently peel the shell away from the meat. Remove the dark intestine.

Combine dressing ingredients in a screwtop jar. Shake well.

Place the salad leaves in a large serving bowl. Add avocado and yabbies, pour dressing over.

This recipe is from Like Grandma Used To Make and almost like my own Nanna made. She didn't use avocados.

From 1965 in Tested Recipes from the Australian Country Women's Association.

White Christmas

250g copha - (vegetable shortening)
1 cup rice bubbles (rice crispies)
1 cup shredded coconut
¾ cup icing sugar
1 cup powdered milk
¾ cup toasted almond kernels
30g mixed peel
30g preserved ginger
30g glace apricots
30g glace pineapple
30g sultanas
50g glace cherries

Chop the fruit and peel coarsely. Put everything except the cophra into a bowl and mix together..

Warm copha gently until melted, and pour over ingredients. Mix well and place in an airtight container and set in fridge. Serve sliced into fingers.

Georgina the Wombat

A little Soft Toy Wombat friend from Australia. She's much happier in cooler weather and a real snuggler, very lifelike and a wonderful addition to any collection of international animal toys.

Large Australian Wombat Soft Plush Toy (42cm)

No Christmas can go by without a visit to the Myer Store to look at the windows.

In Melbourne, this is a local tradition of truly legendary proportions.

We started doing this in 1956 - a big year for Melbourne, when television arrived and we hosted the Olympic Games. The window shows Father Christmas doing a lap around the track, accompanied by Olympic athletes and a miracle of modern technology, a helicopter. There's even a TV set in his sleigh.

Every Christmas since then, the windows have featured a creative display with a different theme each year. The unveiling of the windows is an event in itself. Crowds gather before time (it's not just children who are entranced), television crews set up their equipment, and as the heavy curtains are pulled back, the collective oooh! can be heard blocks away.

Wherever we are in the world, north, south, east or west, Christmas is a very special time.

For some of us the emphasis is on religion, for others it's the family. There are also those who grieve at Christmastime.

Whatever your focus may be at this time of year, I wish you the very best of happiness and, if you are saddened, I wish you solace. To all, cheers from Australia.