Since we got married, SO and I had only had a couple of Christmases in Australia. But after Jay came along, we decided to try to go there as much as possible. This year is only the third time that we haven’t gone back since he was born. The first time I’ve already written about. The second was the year my brother got married in Canada and we spent a month there with him and his new wife earlier in the year and didn’t want to take more time off work. This year we were just too busy to take time off and travel. This post though, is about times we did go there.
As Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s summer for Christmas, so we don’t have white Christmases. Rather, we spend the time around the pool, swimming and having barbecues. Santa comes on Christmas Eve, but leaves our presents at the foot of our beds instead of in stockings over a fire place. Most of us don’t have fireplaces anyway.
One year I remember, we were all up and getting breakfast ready when my father asked Jay if he wanted to open his presents before we ate. Jay’s response was classic, waving his arms he said “No no no no”, and insisted we wait and eat first. He’s not as patient anymore, but it’s a story that we tease him about almost every year and we manage to eat most years before he runs off to demolish the presents.
Talking about opening presents, it’s interesting to compare cultures. SO’s family, who are Indonesian and ethnically Chinese (making a mix of 2 different cultures there), don’t celebrate with Christmas trees or the exchange of presents. Instead they go to church and have a religious celebration there. At least some of her family does, the rest will spend the day relaxing and spending time with family.
Last year thougn we had a bit of culture shock when my brother brought his daughter, Canadian wife and stepdaughter for their first Christmas In Australia. Okay, being a western country, the traditions are much the same. But Australia has much better weather. The big difference is apparently how we open presents, although I’m not sure if it is just their family or Canadians in general.
So picture this, we were all seated in the living room passing out presents, and Jay, being the youngest and most excited. He helped hand out the presents to everyone, and then sat down to destroy, I mean unwrap, his presents. He tore into them as any 7 year-old would, and a look of shock appeared on the faces of the 2 Canadians. Apparently, when they unwrap their presents, even as kids, they do it with precision and decorum that we savages are unfamiliar with. Each present, we were told, has an explanation and after they delicately unwrap it, they wait to hear the reason they were given that specific gift. They did that for the gifts they gave us, which I did like and made the gifts meaningful.
Our gifts, on the other hand, were chosen because it’s something our asked for, something you need or something we thought you’d like. No explanations given, you have to work that out on your own.
Before I finish, I have one more little anecdote to share. When Jay was about 3 or 4, he was helping my father cleaning around the pool. As they were manoeuvering around, Jay slipped and tumbled into the pool, kersplash. My father casually reached down and grabbed his arm, pulling him out. Wiping the water off his face, Jay looked up and said “That wasn’t supposed to happen!”