Growing up in the Southern Hemisphere in a country founded by Christians from the Northern Hemisphere enables one to become quite adept at doublethink. We know that Christmas imagery is snow, a fat man in a red fur suit, sleighs, reindeer, pine trees, bells and twinkly lights. However, upon reaching an age when one can recall their own previous experiences at Christmas, when one's frame of reference includes more than the images one sees on the (entirely) Northern Christmas movies, tv shows and books that one cannot help being exposed to, one realises that Christmas means other, opposing things. It means circling the undercover carpark for forty minutes because you refuse to park in the blazing sun while shopping. It means an inability to sleep on Christmas Eve due to excitement and stifling heat. It means ripping paper off gifts while sunshine streams in through the window, bathing your shortie-pyjama-clad siblings in a warm glow. It means lollies at breakfast, and fizzy drink in wine glasses. It means leaving the back door open all morning because the oven is heating up the house while the lunchtime feast is cooking, and then closing it in the afternoon because the outside temperature has surpassed that of the kitchen. It means giving and receiving outdoorsy gifts, like skates and cricket bats and bubble wands, and being able to use them immediately in the yard. It means swimming in the neighbour's pool after dinner as the sun sinks slowly behind the hills. It means beach trips and fishing and family Scrabble games and wine. Christmas means the year is over, everyone is on holidays and in a good mood. School is out for at least five more weeks, and the APS is down to a skeleton staff.
I have made a conscious effort to avoid winter themes in my Christmas craft and cards for many years now. As a teenager, i was quite patriotic (believe it or not... but this was back in the Keating years, pre 9-11 and pre-Cronulla Riots, before violent nationalism became an admirable quality in a true-blue Australian), and I was determined to celebrate Christmas in a way that reflected the reality of the holiday for me. I spent a long time searching for Christmas cards that didn't display wintery images on the front (this is nigh on impossible - so i started making my own). I scoffed at the tools who decorated their houses and yards with fake snow, or made Christmas craft involving snowflakes or holly. I lost what little interest i had in watching Christmas movies or tv episodes. I examined so-called Christmas carols to expose those which didn't actually mention Christmas, only winter and wintery imagery (Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland and Let It Snow, to name but three). But in the end, one has to allow some of these things to remain, because otherwise what's left?
I think that because i gave up on wintery Christmas imagery many years ago, the very thought of celebrating it this way seemed.... childish. Last year was my first Christmas in a Northern (and Christian) country, and i was completely taken aback by the scale of the Christmas shenanigans in this city. I've shared this theory with other people here, and they agree that it is - but because it's a celebration for children, anyway. See, i don't think that's it. Christmas has it's appeal to children, of course, but i've never felt so very excluded from the event as i do here. But perhaps that's because i'm an outsider anyway - not only an adult looking in on a children's celebration, but also as a foreigner looking in on strange rituals that i'd only read about in books or seen on tv.
I am glad I get another go at Christmas in a Northern country. But i am sorely missing a summer Christmas. It feels like a cosy little secret shared by Southern colonies that the rest of the world doesn't know about... And boy, do they not know about it. Here is a smattering of the questions i've been asked about Christmas in Australia:
"But what do you eat? You can't possibly have turkey." (My family's had turkey, among other delicious dishes including ham and prawns, at Christmas for as long as i can remember.)
"I suppose you just have a barbeque on the beach?" (I have never had a barbeque on a beach in my life. Who wants sand in their snags?!?!)
"But the best thing about Christmas is snuggling up by the heater with mulled wine!" (Replace "snuggling" with "relaxing", replace "heater" with "pool" and "mulled wine" with "chilled shiraz" and there's very little difference, is there? Really?)
"So when it's actually winter, what do you celebrate?" (Really. Someone asked me this.)
I think what i am trying to say is that in Australia, we grow up with the doublethink. We grow up accepting these two opposing truths about Christmas, and it's not that difficult to get our heads around. Which is why i am so surprised by my adult English friends and their reaction of shock and awe to my Christmas reality. I pity them a little for getting this far into their lives having never tried to stretch their imaginations far enough to consider Christmas without winter - and due to the fact that they're not bombarded with summertime Christmas imagery, they probably never will. Oh well. Poor them. We Southerners will continue to keep our glorious little secret. Everything's better in summertime anyway.
