So this is Christmas, what have we done.

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I had hoped to have this completed a long time before now, but stuff seems to get in the way!

Christmas in Australia is a strange thing, though not nearly as depressing as my title might suggest.

The build up is very different from England, seeing Christmas decorations around the City in the middle of Summer brings the reactions of ‘I can’t believe they have put Christmas decorations up already, it’s still Summer! Oh actually Christmas is in Summer here, I’ll let them off. But its still wrong!’ It never really quite feels like Christmas. I even managed to convince an Australian of this as well when he was mocking the English view of it not ‘feeling Christmassy’ as to him Christmas was a date in the calendar, rather than a spirit of feeling, when I reminded him that one of the origins of Christmas was a way of cheering folk up in the middle of what is otherwise a fairly dreary time of year. The other thing is that deep down Australian’s know that Christmas should be in Winter and a European Winter at that, as they exchange cards with snowy scenes on and not cards with drunk folk hanging out on the beach.

So as Christmas approached there was a distinct lack of festive spirit in the flat as I had banned any decorations on the basis that we had perfectly good decorations back in England so there was no need to spend money on any more and the lights and streamers that Nicola did manage to sneak through were left in their box. The only real sign that Christmas was on the way was that there were free drinks with work every Friday instead of the usual once a month, a merry Christmas indeed!

When Christmas Eve arrived, we still hadn’t kicked in to the spirit, the requirements of posting presents meant that we had finished all of our shopping so there was no last minute present buying to do. The centre of Perth was also free of any buzz as we managed to walk around the early sales without any hassle from frantic activity. By this point I had worked out what the problem was though; I hadn’t seen either of the two indicators that Christmas was on the way! As far as I am concerned it isn’t Christmas until I have seen the Coke advert with the lorries driving through the snowy town and it definitely isn’t Christmas until it has been proclaimed as being Christmas over the radio by Noddy Holder (preferably several times in a short period of time!).

However once we had arrived up at Stephen & Jenna’s the Christmas music was playing out and Noddy shouted in the arrival of Christmas. We spent the evening in the garden eating fillet steak and drinking beer and champagne, which is very similar to my usual Christmas Eve in Scunthorpe, which starts in the Bluebell at 8, but the usual crowd and Christmassy tackiness of Scunthorpe were much missed.

When Christmas morning arrived the true spirit of Christmas was in full swing; Tradition, clichés and general tackiness. Fantastic! The difference being in our first expat Christmas the traditions and clichés were new to us. The day started in the usual way with an early start, a spot of breakfast followed by present opening. Then we were off to the beach to meet the first (and probably main) cliché, the outside breakfast and beers by the beach whilst wearing Santa hats. This activity is definitely the preserve of the English in Perth, a time to reflect of how good it is to be in Perth, and as with many such reflections it is the absence of the local Australian population that makes it a fun filled atmosphere.

We then partook in a spot of cricket and football on the beach (another 2 clichés for the collection!) and then headed back to Stephen and Jenna’s and spent the rest of the day eating drinking and hopping between the swimming pool and the hot tub, much the same as families would be doing all across the UK I imagine. When the temperature dropped a bit we were able to have a full Christmas dinner outside in the garden.

We had made it through our first Christmas in Australia!

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