South Australia has added a third week to the winter break. I don't understand why cos it rains here in July. Our summer break is over at end of January.
Ryan, check out the Aussie Christmas Carol "Six White Boomers". Also the absolutely brilliant Christmas ad for Telstra . This Christmas, each public telephone box has a line to Santa and the ad has a child helping one of Santa's reindeer get back to Santa by ringing him from the telephone box. It's definitely worth a look.
I think the penchant for Australians decorating with snow themes is slowly changing. Recently I saw tree decorations in a shop that are uniquely Australian. Australian birds and animals, tiny surfboards and little characters like cricket and tennis players and even a surf life saver. Also in Australia at Christmas time we get nature's yummiest fruit in season. Mangoes, watermelon, cherries all the best stone fruit.
I think the classic christmas tree isn't going away anytime soon, but growing up in the 90s we use to decorate with that fake snow in a can crap that I haven't seen in like 15 years+. That being said, the streetlight displays I see in Perth still have snow men and it doesn't even snow in Perth in winter... best we get is snow on the Stirling Ranges.
Ohhhh I absolutely LOVE having all those delicious summer fruits around Christmas time. Äs a kids, all you care about are the presents. As an adult, (speaking for myself, personally) all I care about is the food, mostly. Don't get me wrong, I love the gifts, too. Though now I prefer to give, more than receive. But yeah, can't beat all those yummy, delicious summer fruits at Christmas time. It's one of the highlights to my Christmas time now. 😁
No it’s not. Most people here still use and prefer the snow theme. It’s just a new thing some stores are trying to push but you see in stores that no one is buying the australiana theme and it sits on the shelf.
@@Beeannks Most people? Tell us where all these most people are? And where do they purchase all of their snow themed products? Some people are buying the Aussie themed products, though. And perhaps over time, the attraction to it will grow. I've been taking with my elderly mother and my kids, and now my grandkids, to look at many different Christmas lawn displays every year for over 3 decades now. And I can honestly say that snow themed stuff (aside from the odd "snowman") is truly becoming less and less common.
There is a series of Australian Christmas carols, that have local themes. They refer to the hot winds, the bush and the local animals. They were written by Wheeler and James, and are beautiful. The most famous is called “Christmas Day”, and another one is “The Carol of the Birds”, which refers to boobooks and brolgas dancing.
Depends on where you’re. It’s not super hot everywhere in Australia at Christmas time. I had to wear a jumper at the shops today and right now it’s cold. So with heavy rain today and the cold it was nice at the shops with the Christmas music. Maybe up north it’s hot as it is there.
There's a great Australian christmas song called '6 white boomers' where Santa uses kangaroos instead of reindeer to find a joey kangaroo's mother, lots of fun! Bucko and Champs Christmas songs are my family's favourites haha.
Because Australia doesn't have Thanksgiving, Christmas tends to be 'the' large family get together event. Often with larger extended families there's a large meal with each set of grandparents. The celebration with the extended family both don't have to be on the day though one often is.
Yep, as kids grow up and get into their own relationships, it's not always easy for everyone to all get together on the one day. Sometimes the day can be split between households, going to the g.f's/wife's parents house for lunch, then to the b.f's/husband's parents for dinner, or vice versa. Or even if parents are split up and don't live together anymore, then the kids need to go to two households to spend time with both parents for Christmas. But then in more recent years, some people just don't wanna be travelling around from house to house on Christmas Day. Especially if they have to travel a fairly long distance to get to the other relatives house. So I've started noticing in more recent years, that more people are deciding to have one "Christmas day" with one household on Christmas eve, then another entire day with the other household on Christmas day. Or one day with one household on Christmas day, and the other "Christmas day" with another household on Boxing day (the day after Christmas, for those who don't know about Boxing day). it's also a great way for those of us who tend to buy a lot of food just for one day, and then we can enjoy the leftovers the next day with even more family members and catch up.
Christmas on Boxing Day with one side was the way my family grew up. Or later once we moved to the outback. We drove down after the worst of the traffic had finished. When I married, we’d have either my family or quiet just-us on Christmas Day & go to hubby’s family on Boxing Day one year, then other way round the next year.
For several decades it has been a tradition in our family to play a friendly game of cricket either in the backyard or at the local park, after we've had Christmas lunch. A great way to work off that huge meal we eat too, and make room for some more at dinner time LOL.
It’s been years since we’ve been able to light a candle. Most carols by candlelight’s sell small battery powered ‘candles’. Nine times out of ten santa comes in a firetruck.
Fun Fact: Adelaide is the ONLY city that hosts a City Christmas Pageant! No other city does this. We have loads of amazing floats (approx 60), marching bands, clowns, dancers etc and Santa on his sleigh at the end, and it goes through the streets of the city. Literally thousands of people line the streets (over 300K in 2019!!), kids drawing with chalk on the sidewalk and we hope to god that it doesn't rain or that it isn't 40C! And I only found out this year that we are the only city that does this. How cool!!
For Australian Christmas movies, I'd look at 'The Magic Pudding' as one for the kids. Big list of Australian Christmas songs: White Wine in the Sun, Aussie Jingle Bells, How to make Gravy, 6 White Boomers
I live in Australia. I am a 1st generation Aussie but my husband and my family come from europe (Poland and Croatia). Traditionally we celebrate christmas eve with lots of seafood for dinner. We exchange gifts from one another and then go to church. On Christmas morning we open our gifts from santa and then have a nice lunch outside. Boxing day is essentially a recovery day.
Hey Ryan, we don't have a huge summer break like Americans do, but we do have more "school holidays" during the year. We have four terms, they're usually around 10 weeks each, and then a 2 week break between each term -- with a six week break in summer (mid-Dec to the first week of Feb).
We have battery powered candles that we use these days because of the bushfire danger, at the Carols by candlelight. A good one to look up is Carols in the Domain. This is in the Domain area of Sydney and is usually a televised event as they feature some great Aussie talent.
Carols by Candlelight at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl is just as good, especially since all the proceeds and donations go to Vision Australia that helps children who are blind and visually impaired. That being said, I also miss the deafness telethon that used to be held every year on Channel 10 (previously known as the 0 network). The best thing about both Carols events, is that we get to sit down with our loved ones and enjoy 2 special nights in front of the telly, singing Christmas carols together. Especially as the kids start to grow up and we barely get to sit around and enjoy many family moments watching something together, as much as we did when they were little.
My daughter's friends are Muslim, and her friend says she a a great Muslim, with the best Christmas Tree in town. Her children go to a Christian School, because they don't appreciation wokeness.
The Australian school year is 40 weeks, broken into 4 equal "terms". That leaves 12 weeks for holidays, which are usually split into 6 weeks for Summer/Christmas (starting mid-December and finishing at the end of January), 2 weeks for Autumn/Easter (usually the weeks on either side of Easter Sunday), 2 week for Winter (in the middle of the year) and 2 weeks for Spring (end of September/start of October).
I used to get so jealous when I found out that for summer Americans get three months off but my mum told me that each season we get two weeks off so when it becomes that six weeks for summer vacation it all adds up in the end which made me feel a lot better
Every year on Christmas Eve the Fire Brigades around here load up their trucks and drive through every street with a Santa sitting up top. The Fireman stand up there and throw bags of lollies to all the kids, they have Christmas carols playing as they do it. Pretty much every kid will run out and line the street as they hear the truck coming. We used to run to different streets to get as many bags as we could. :D
As they drove past, we'd always give the firemen a sixpack to share when their day was over. Living in a cul-de-sac we often got a second hit of lollies as they came back down the street lol
The firemen driving on Christmas Eve with lollies for the children is an iconic Christmas event. In my parents' street on Christmas day this year, Santa turned up on a Harley and gave the children a little gift. I'm not sure which neighbour organised it, but it was lovely to see how happy the children were
An Australian tv series that shows really mainstream (working class) culture, I think, is “A Moody Christmas”. It is a 6 part series covering 6 years of a family whose surname is Moody. Almost entirely filmed in one backyard. Very Australian sense of humour.
About 65 years ago when we were living with our grandparent my sister & I went down the bush & brought home a small dead tree with several branches & painted it with white wash & stuck it in a large can of dirt wrapped in Xmas paper then decorated it with a bit of tinsel cotton wool balls & handmade coloured cardboard stars & we had a great happy Xmas
For the changing out the reindeer for kangaroos, there's a big christmas song about it in Australia. Lookup the song "Six white boomers". For the boxing day, it's common with larger familys to have the boxing day test on the tv, while the family sits around, plays cards, and consumes left-overs. While the young-uns are out in the yard playing cricket themselves, catching up with extended family/cousins etc (This may be the only time of year you all get to catch up), the adults have a few drinks, everyone is in recovery mode, and folks will often drive home the next day.
It's Christmas today. My parents, my husband, dog & I travelled 760km south to have Christmas with my sister and her family (all adults now 😢 and the most wonderful people ever) and their partners. We drove over to sister's around midday with a full cooler (esky), sis was busy in the kitchen making an array of beautiful food. Her husband, our brother-in-law (BIL) cooked a couple of pork roasts with crackling, ham and a turducken. It was served with crispy roast spuds, sweet potato casserole, peas and bean salad, baked brie & apple dish, home made cranberry sauce, spiced strawberries and cherries, gravy and bread rolls. Glorious spread. Great range of home made desserts much later - to give lunch time to settle. Apple pie, raspberry, strawberry and chocolate tart, Eton Mess (strawberries soaked in sugar & orange liqueur, crushed meringues & whipped cream), and a home made icecream pudding (Kahlua, crushed almonds, chocolate & honeycomb) served with a choc-mocha sauce. Desserts are brought by the guests. A mat that sprays water was set up for the dogs to play in, but they mostly lay in the hard plastic kiddies pool that is set up for them every summer. The rest of us encouraged sis with Bellinis, as made in Harry's Bar in Venice - peach juice and Prosecco. Boys tried a range of previously untried beers. Much bubbly 🍾 was imbibed (except for the designated drivers - deso). We sat outside on the covered deck all afternoon, the day was around 31ºC (about 88ºF) until early evening. While waiting for the meat to cook, we gathered around the real Christmas tree 🎄 and handed out lot and lots of very special, thoughtful presents. So Christmas in Australia is family, lots of food and drink and presents. It often involves water.
Used to live on a 6 acre property in the Adelaide hills. The guy next door planted pine trees along the boundary. Every Christmas we used to cut an overhanging branch from one of the trees so we could have a "tree" that reached the ceiling in the living room.
Prawns definitely go on the barbie, or just precooked with lemon and pepper. The Aussie tradition of being stopped anytime you drive on Christmas Day by a grumpy and hot cop for an RBT (random breath test for blood alcohol levels) wasn’t mentioned but it’s 100% Australian. So some poor sod has to stay sober all Christmas Day and drive the rest of us home. Some people also have long Christmas holidays. This year I’ll be off work from Friday the 22nd until Monday January 8th. Merry Christmas Ryan and family and get well soon. ❤️🩹
The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is a big part of the Christmas - New Year sporting calendar in Australia. The race began in 1945, and continues today. It is 628 nautical miles/1163km of ocean racing starting on Sydney Harbour at 1pm on Boxing Day, 26th December, finishing at Constitution Dock in Hobart, anywhere from less than 48hrs up to 4 days later. The slowest time for the race was in 1945, with a time of 11 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes. The fastest time was 1 day, 9 hours, 15 minutes, 24 seconds. There have been controversies surrounding race tactics; deaths at sea because of horrendous weather conditions, etc, over the years. It is one of the most prestigious ocean races in the world with boats and crews from around the world taking part. It might be worth letting your fingers do the walking to find out more about this iconic Australian sporting event. 🙃🐨🇦🇺
And of course, the Boxing Day test match at the MCG. This year, it's Pakistan...but Boxing Day tests against England or India...or NZ or South Africa...are huge.
@@c8Lorraine1it do indeed... once they lose the shelter and protection of the mainland, all hell can, and often does, break loose.. they are definitely far hardier souls than I... they can have that all on their Pat Malone...😏
Shame that Channel 7, which was the advertised broadcaster for the Sydney to Hobart start, didn't bother to broadcast it, at least in regional areas. Instead, regional viewers got the test cricket on all three Channel 7 channels.
To be perfectly fair, most Aussies will only ever see the start of the Sydney to Hobat Yacht race, because they usually show it while televising the Boxing Day test
I always remember watching” Bondi Rescue on Christmas Day” and all the tourists are from cold climates and are absolutely loving the sun and sand as it’s so different. And as an Australian I would love to try the cold climate one day!
In Adelaide South Australia u know Christmas is approaching when the Christmas pageant is held with all the amazing pageant floats and performers and it’s always televised
Hey Ryan, thanks for getting through the video while you're feeling so ill, you did a great job. Now go get some antibiotics and rest up so you're feeling well for all the festivities coming up. Merry Christmas to you and your family from your Aussie family of viewers downunder!
Christmas is a completely different vibe in Australia. A real summer festival feel with lots of eating and drinking, family time, short or long breaks from work (depending on whether you want to use your annual leave entitlements) and we have quite a lot of public holidays throughout the summer too. Imagine the 4th of July but your tree is up. All the kids have finished school for the year, the beach is calling, cicadas are out, it's light till late etc. We are CELEBRATING for like 3 months.
As a small child I was always waiting for it to snow on Xmas day. It didn`t help that my parents would always say "maybe next Xmas it`ll snow". We lived on the NSW North coast.
Some parts of NSW have had snow on Christmas Day. Oberon has in the past. Tasmania occasionally will get snow on Christmas Day at cradle mountain. We’re forecast to have a cool day with heavy rain on Christmas Day where I am in NSW. I hate summer so am very happy to have a cold wet Christmas this year
Oh, Merry Aussie Christmas Ryan! 👍🧑🎄🙃 Happy Holidays! 🏖️🌴🏂 (I get bronchitis too, take garlic, ginger, vitamin c, and keep dust and mould down!) We always have a big real, beautiful smelling, Pine Tree!🌲 I love the Carols by Candlelight, everyone sings!💡 Christmas day is for presents and feasting, twice, Boxing Day for rest and cricket!🦞🏏
My family has always celebrated on Christmas Eve. My eldest nephew is now taking over the annual event so four generations now. It's our Danish grandfather who instigated this after immigrating here in the 1920's.
I used to have a great Christmas tradition with the kids where we used to go out in the bush and pick out a big gumtree branch and take it home and decorate it with all Australian themed stuff. Made the house smell great as well.
This lovely young lady has given an Australian Xmas a heavily South Australian influence and god bless her for that, the rest of Australia is getting as far away from snow and hot baked lunch/dinner and more prawns on the barbie and hit the beach if near by, I haven’t seen a can of ‘santa snow’ for 20 years. Merry Xmas to all and sundry.
Agree. Im in SA and yes snow is still a feature at xmas here though I myself this year decided not to have any decorations which feature it as I want to get away from that and go more Australian xmas.
Huh! I'm a south Aussie and we don't do the snow stuff and we have a wooden Santa's sleigh pulled by six white boomers - currently sitting on top of the fridge courtesy of the local men's shed. We usually steer towards summery Christmas themed stuff like Santa chilling at the beach or riding a surfboard and hybrid summer and Christmas decorations. Never had the fake snow either.
It really depends on you/your family. Some people like the traditional snow theme, some go for the more Aussie flavoured decor. And the video did mention seafood and BBQ rather than hot roast? Although I do love my turkey and will always suffer the heat for it 😂
So not true. I’m in NSW and lived in WA and we very much do the hot turkey roast dinner. We have loads of fake snow cans at the shops that do sell out quickly so you have to buy them early . I live 20 minutes from many beaches and it’s mainly used by tourists on Christmas Day.
My kids were taught (by my Dad), to sit on the roof of the house with champagne/wine corks on Christmas Eve. He didn't want Santa's reindeer to poo on his roof so the kids needed to be ready for when they landed. The kids loved it and still talk about it to their kids!!
That's true, we don't get a festive break in winter. There's a couple weeks school holidays for families with kids, but if not, and as well, for adults winter is for working. Especially in outdoor jobs like construction, because summer is hot and winters aren't snowbound, it's the most productive time of the year. There's a swag of long weekends in spring, which is what everyone looks forward to.
In Victoria, most of our long weekends (the weekend + a public holiday) all tend to fall in the first half of the year. By the second half of the year, we only get 3 public holidays. Queen's/King's birthday in June, AFL Grand Final eve in Sept, and Melbourne Cup in Nov. Not even sure if all of Vic gets the public holiday for Melbourne Cup, either, or if it's just a Melbourne day off. And thankfully we were given that public holiday back for Sept (which was taken away by Jeff Kennet back in the 90's), or else we'd only have the 2 public hols in the last half of the year. So by the time Christmas rolls around, many of us are hanging out for those 2-4 weeks off from Christmas onwards. If you're lucky enough to even get the time off over Christmas and New Years, that is. After all, many poor sods are still working hard through those times, so the rest of us can enjoy that time off.
She’s a bit behind the times as things have changed in regards to the way Aussies celebrate Christmas nowadays, especially with her faux winter fire and tree. We now use more Australian style decorations that suit our climate. From using local trees to driftwood, sending cards that have Aussie themes, like Santa surfing, swimming, barbecuing etc, there’s now less snow and winter style decorations. We definitely do have Kangaroos pulling a sleigh for Santa dressed in swimwear. And seafood is now very common for Christmas lunch instead of a traditional English hot roast.
@@tanyabrown9839 yep, it’s starting to change around the country which is good as it’s always been part of our tradition to follow the British style of Christmas with American influences. It’s crazy that we still use decorations that reflect a cold winter theme with snowmen, reindeer etc etc, it really makes no sense. But now I think many Aussies are starting to embrace and celebrate the fact we have a hot Christmas. My families not religious so we have a driftwood Xmas tree with a beach theme of seashells, starfish, clay eucalyptus leaves, wooden hearts etc. especially fitting as a lot of Aussies spend Christmas at the beach.
The woman making the video is from SA, and that state has a significant German influence, which might be the reason for the "real" trees. My Sydney family always had a plastic tree. Yes, multicultural families often do a small Christmas for the sake of their children, but a Muslim acquaintance will be going to the office on Dec 27-29 so her Christian colleagues don't have to. The Sydney Fish Markets is open for 36 hours straight, from 5am 23/12 to 5pm 24/12. My partner and I don't have kids or nearby family, so we don't do much on Xmas day, but we have friends over on Boxing Day to drink and eat and relax.
Pretty much everyone that I know in SA has always used a fake tree. I do know there are a few tree farms up in the Hills, although I never met anyone who used them. Two of the big events that happen around here at Christmas would be the Riverbank (Brewery) lights, and the Lobethal lights. You really need to Google these to get a good understanding of them.
I think the extra break for the American education system may not be ideal. The stats are showing Americans might need to spend a little bit of extra time on education. 😉
It has nothing to do with spending more time, thats a big misconception of the americans. In germany we can maybe do everything they do in their jobs in 60-80 hours per week in just 35 hours because of beeing more efficient and also more relaxed because we have the time to relax and are not totally stressed out. And for schools its quite the same, i think americans spend way more hours in school every day and still learn way less.
@@beldin2987To be fair, the Americans do have to devote half their school time to training their kids to hide under their desks 🤣(active shooter drills)
@@aflaz171 Why does @beldin2987 have to be an Aussie to be able to respond to @trentoncrisp comment? @beldin2987 is simply comparing the hours that U.S kids spend physically being in school classes, supposedly learning, to the time spent in classrooms for German kids. And whether time spent physically being in a classroom learning makes any sort of difference or not. @trentoncrisp never actually said anything about Aussie kids being smarter than U.S kids, or anything like that. So there's no reason why anyone besides an Aussie is allowed to throw their 2 cents worth in on the discussion.
Carols by Candlelight is held at the Music Bowl in Melbournes Botanical Gardens on Christmas Eve, with battery operated candles, all our music artists perform with an orchestra & choir, & traditionally all the proceeds go to the Royal Institute for the Blind, to raise & train guide dogs to assist the visually impaired. It starts while it's still daylight & finishes when Santa makes an appearance just after midnight.
I haven’t watched the full video yet but Aussie Christmas Eve is amazing❤ You literally get to see lights and sometimes even go into ppls front yards! It’s crazy ik
Our kids get 6-8 weeks in Dec-Jan, depending on what grade they're in and whether it's a public or private school. They also get about 10 days at Easter, 2 weeks in Jun-Jul and 2 weeks in Sep-Oct. Plenty of time off 😊 We had real trees a few times as kids in the 70s/80s, but most years we'd just drag out the plastic tree and put up the same boring old decorations 😅
American here with a huge family. We celebrate the twelve days of Christmas beginning on Christmas Eve at the oldest family member’s house that night. Christmas Day is celebrated at home with our individual families. Then through the 6th of January we go to each other’s homes with the gifts from that home given. These gifts are small and useful, maybe just a set of measuring cups or a pair of socks. The final day is Dollar Santa Day where we play Dirty Santa with hilarious gifts.
Mate, don’t feel sorry for the break time at school here, as well the 6 week summer break, there are also 3 other 2 week breaks in April July and October.
In Germany it is Weihnachten (Christmas eve) for presents, and some of Europe, presents are still given on December 6th, St Nicklaus day. Breaks in NZ are similar to Aussie: for primary & secondary schools (pre-University), 6 weeks over summer, with a two week break between each term, roughly ten weeks/term. Breaks are roughly quarterly at Easter, June/July and September. Tertiary education (Uni) are usually two 12-15 week semesters with a two week break in the middle of the semester, a mid year break, and an eight to ten week break over summer.
I had Christmas in Hamburg Germany one year and what freaked me out was they had real candles on the Christmas tree and the ice cream was outside on the verandah😂😂
Has anyone mentioned Christmas in July? Some of us do all the traditional cold climate Christmas food and have a gathering to have that Christmas food in winter. So we get Christmas, twice!
When my children were small be used to hunt a "feral tree". We lived on a 25 acre property just outside of Canberra. There are lots of plantations of Pinus Radiata around the ACT, and we had lots of seedlings coming up on our property. As she said, before my husband chopped it down, it would be well doused in flyspray. And then it would be carted up the hill to our house. Growing up in Canberra, about a week before Christmas Day, Dad and Mum would take us on a car trip to see all the decorated trees around Canberra. The highlight of this would be the one at the US Embassy. This was before they built a surrounding fence when you could drive right up to the tree.
My family has two Christmases. Christmas Eve is with my sister-in-law's family (they are from El Salvador), and then Christmas Day with my parents' families - usually lunch with my Dad's family and dinner with my mum's family.
when my kids were little we would leave out chrissy cake or bickies for santa. when they went to bed id go in and a take a bight out of the cake then id grab my fox terrier, Patch and id pluck some white hairs out of his back and sprinkle them on the cake. the kids were amazed "SANTA LEFT REAL WHISKERS ON THE CAKE" hahahaha 😎
🎄Yes, in Germany we celebrate (mainly) on christmas eve. To keep the impatient children busy, there are special kids shows on TV the whole day. 😆 Please get well soon, Ryan. I don‘t like to see you suffer.❤️
Ryan pretty much all of us in Middle& Eastern Europe celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve- so in the evening before you guys celebrate. It used to be a tradition that the Christmas tree was put up on Christmas Eve and the kids weren’t allowed to see it, it’s still common in many areas. In Austria and some other countries we also don’t have Santa, the Christkind comes instead (basically baby Jesus). It’s always really strange to see US movies where people celebrate Christmas in their pyjamas… it has a completely different vibe, very casual. Christmas is quite „classical“ here, you dress up and celebrate together. What you eat for dinner is also an important topic and most families have their own traditions, they’ll eat the same special meal every year. There are many different food traditions based on regions. I‘d almost say it’s more like your thanksgiving than your Christmas. Kids usually have to wait until dinner is over to open their presents but that’s part of the excitement. You try to catch a look during the day when the living room area is a prohibited place, seeing the tree with the lights and the presents underneath when you are finally allowed in as a kid is part of why Christmas is special.
I managed to raise my son without the need for Santa. Don’t get me wrong, we still shared presents under the tree and summertime meals, however we still included our religious beliefs and traditions. My son , now an adult, said he loved the way we did Christmas and intends to do the same with his family
There are public schools and private schools. Summer holidays go for 6-8 weeks and there is 3 other breaks throughout the year ranging from 2 to 3 weeks.
If you are really feeling overwhelmed by all this Xmas hoopla, you could always try what I did . Being totally over it, all this you must buy stuff that people don’t want because it is a certain time of year, I was heading off to Finland prior to my trip into Russia. Sightseeing in Finland is fun, got the train up to the Arctic Circle. Hopped off at Rovanemi, Santa Claus’s hometown. Went out to check out his establishment, sat on his knee, had photo taken (which they print off as postcards). Wrote home to the family…see, he really exists! (Tongue in cheek). Then I went into town and ate his reindeer for lunch. Then I sent the postcards notifying Xmas was over . Santa wasn’t coming any more as I had eaten his reindeer. And that was the end of Xmas bs in our household. So liberating!
@@c8Lorraine1 😄 You need to look up the origins of xmas! It's an ancient Winter Solstice celebration that was Christianised. WAY older than Christianity.
European cultures Christmas eve is the main celebration. My grandparent immigrated to Grand Rapids MI. They celebrated on Christmas Eve as they were from Latvia.
same in germany 24th eve - suffering through diner with parents and food I never liked and then presents 25/26 after that are just 2 attached holidays after that or for someone (un) lucky like me to be born on 25th dec another weird holiday with all the rest of the family visiting and much more bad dinner left overs... mfg Olli
Dad spends all Boxing Day flicking the tv between cricket and the yacht race (drinking beer and eating prawns) while the kids take all the money they got for Christmas from family and go to the sales with mum.
I always found Christmas movies weird, from my childhood it was mostly american movies with the sterotypical snow, etc. Off the top of my head I cannot think of a single Aussie christmas movie. Something I don't know if the US has, but where grew up in Aus, we actually had "Christmas in July" parties. Not an actual christmas with gifts, etc. But since it was winter we had some fun pretending to have a cold christmas xD fake snow and all. Christmas brekkie or lunch has been a staple. The evening has always just been for friends to get together in my experience and is never really a big event, just a small platter of food. Hope you all have a good day :3
Yes, to all of this. US/UK Christmas movies always feel a little alien and I cannot think of a single Aussie one. Our weird ‘Christmas in July’ thing which is really just a way for us all to think about what it would be like to have a cold Christmas. Christmas food is always weighted heavily towards the first half of the day, by the time it hits 4-5pm everyone is drunk or asleep or we’ll on their way to one of those options 😂 And I hope YOU have a good day 😊
Actually quite a few Auzzie Xmas movies a lot are a bit corny .A sunburnt Christmas . Christmas on the Farm .& a Bush Christmas are few that readily come to mind ,A bush Christmas is a remake of a 1947 movie of the same name & was Nicole Kidmans first feature role.
I think it's because July usually has lower temperatures than June, and the main point is eating all those cold weather foods that are traditional in a northern hemisphere Christmas diner. @georgescott6967
The bit about the spiders in the real tree made me LOL. Especially the thought of them taking up residence in the pressies!!🤣 We've always had a fake tree cos I like to put it up at the start of December. The real ones are dead, and dropping needles everywhere, by Xmas day if you do that! 😂 Boxing Day is our equivalent of your Black Friday.
It was 20c 68f during the day where I live today and that was the warmest it got. Depends on where you’re. Australia is a big country and not hot everywhere.
My mum is one of 9 siblings, and I am one of 29 grandchildren (not to mention 27 great-grandchildren, plus 2 great-great-grandchildren), so I can indeed confirm Christmas is rather expensive 😂
Swedish Tomte. Also known as the Nisse in Norway and Denmark. I first heard about the Tomte from my grandma around Christmas time. It’s a little creature from Scandinavian folklore that is usually associated around the winter solstice and Christmas.
Hey Ryan, the temperature check you did was at 1am sydney time, a cooler part of the day 😂. The top temperature in my part of Sydney today was 95F/35C. Hottest day so far this month was 108F/42C.
An Australian Christmas carol: …. (Boomers = kangaroos… not our elders) 😊 Six white boomers, Snow White boomers Racing Santa Clause across the blazing sun…
The 2 largest Carols by Candleight (Sydney and Melbourne) are telecast on Channel 7 and Channel 9 (and these days streamed) - one of them is always on Christmas Eve, and I think the other is normally the Satirday before Christmas. There might be some restriction on streaming them live internationally, but I'd imagine you can stream repeats the following day (and most of it ends up on youtube, even if they don't have the entire event). We lived next door to some Jehovah's Witness (I think) when I was growing up. They absolutely wouldn't celevrate Christmas and the kids weren't happy. I can also relate to her point about the European Christmas - we would have the bulk of the celebration (and presents around the tree) on Christmas Eve (Santa would deliver stuff under the tree while we were eating dinner which seemed to suspiciously coincide with one of the parents remembering they had to close an open window in the lounge room). Christmas Day might have still had a lot of Christmas food (Ham, seafood, salads, cold-cuts, peaches, cherries, nuts, gingerbread etc) but it was more a day of doing nothing for us. Re the kangroos, there is a Christmas Carol (or Song) "Six White Boomers" - that is about Santa's sleigh being towed by skippies rather than reindeer. Boxing day used to have *massive* sales (literally like $10 fridges if you were lucky) but they got dangerously crowded and were scaled back (I think inthe 90s) because you'd literally get a mad rush into the stores to get the super cheap stuff (which was typically a very limited stock of only 1 or 2 items). Boxing Day Test FTW....
When I was a kid we had a Lebanese family that lived a few doors up from us. Whether they were Christian or not and whether they celebrated Christmas, I'm not entirely sure. I just hung around with one of the girls briefly when I was about 8 or 9 (she was about a yr older) when we first moved to the area, then we just went our separate ways over time. But the kids certainly didn't wake up to a bunch of presents, that's for sure. So my friend and her younger brother used to come over to our house from Boxing day onwards and would play with some of mine and my brothers toys that we got. I kinda felt pretty bad for them. Not sure how much it may have bothered them, though. Wasn't something kids would really talk about decades ago. As for Boxing day sales in stores the day after Christmas, it's no different to the Black Friday sales in the U.S - which have now also crept into Australia and our retailers have decided to cash in on that U.S tradition as well. And yes, Boxing day test at the G (MCG = Melbourne Cricket Ground) is a huge deal in my family. Has been for generations. Kinda like NFL is in the U.S on Thanksgiving Day.
I like that our main School holidays are in the Christmas/New Year break. Then the kids started school at the beginning of the year-in late January. Makes more sense than having a school "year" that went across 2 calendar years.
Aussie schools might be similar to New Zealand where you get six weeks off in summer from a week before Christmas until Feb. Then you have 4 terms at school. Each term is split by a two week break, totalling another six weeks. So schools get 12 weeks off per year, plus public holidays.
in Aus it also depends on if you go to a public or private school. In High school I was at a private school and got 10 weeks over the xmas holiday. Private primary schools generally get 8 weeks and public schools only get 6 weeks.
There is an old xmas song called 'six white boomers' about santa using roos to pull his sleigh. My aunt and uncle always have a gum tree branch as their Xmas tree
Christmas time in Tasmania the most southern state of Australia is simply amazing, not so hot as the mainland and sometimes does snow up at mt Wellington...
We had a slug problem one year. It was a really really wet summer and something kept eating the wrapping paper on the gifts under the tree at night and leaving slug trails everywhere. We eventually found them living up in the angel.
We do the cold meats and a BBQ with various salads, followed by a decorated pavlova, home-made trifle (heavy on the sherry for the adults one😅), home-made tiramisu and a trifle made with chocolate sponge roll, Bailey's Irish cream, custard and cream❤
It’s very dependent on schools (public v private). My kids’ are currently on 8 weeks summer/Christmas holidays (they finished on 30 November). Then they get 2 weeks holiday between each of the other school terms during the year, so another 6 weeks. So their school year looks like this, starting at the end of January: Term 1 - 10 weeks 2 weeks holiday Term 2 - 10 weeks 2 weeks holiday Term 3 - 10 weeks 2 weeks holiday Term 4 - 8 weeks 8 weeks xmas/summer holidays Plus they get some public holidays and student free days within those terms.
I recommend watching bondi rescue Christmas episodes!! I also remember when i was little my preschool gave us some sort of crumbs with glitter, that you sprinkle onto your lawn, calling reindeer food! 😂
As an Aussie, I've never understood Australians trying to replicate Christmas in Northern countries, i.e., winter decorations and lunch. What's wrong with a summery Christmas. My family's Christmas lunch is a fancy barbecue - much more sensible. Santa should be wearing red board shorts, thongs (as in flip-flops for non-Australians), and tank top!!
Boxing day used to traditionally be a day of donating. So when you got new clothes or toys for Christmas, you would box up some of your older toys and clothes to donate to charity.
That was what it was originally. NOW, it's just enjoying the leftovers from Christmas day, kids still enjoying their presents and dad/hubby watching the Boxing day test match on the telly. Well, that's what it has long been in my family. 😁
With regards to the carols by candlelight, a couple of things about the candles, 1 is that these are generally held in the middle of a sporting oval or something like that, minimising the risk of bushfire. And 2 is that for more than 10 years now battery operated "candles" have increasingly become the preferred choice for the event.
I’m from Uruguay, so a lot of things are similar to Australia here (southern hemisphere). The school year is quite different to yours, here it begins in march, then you have a winter break for 2 weeks in july, and ends in december. Meaning our summer break is from december til beginning of march (more than 2 months). The advantage of this, is that the whole school year is fully contained within the calendar year. Also christmas here is mainly celebrated the 24th at night, waiting till midnight to actually celebrate christmas and open the gifts. Remember it’s summer, so it is usually hot and the sun sets around 9pm, also kids are on vacations so they stay up fairly easy. Then the 25th is usually just a free day to wake up late, and don’t do much and spend with the family. Extra fun fact: Uruguay being a secular country, names Dec 25th as the “Family Day”. So catholic people can celebrate christmas as usual, but those like me who are not, can basically do the same celebration but with no religion connotations. You should look for a southern hemisphere facts video, it is more interesting and different to american life than it might seem.
My parents were Polish. Big meal was xmas eve, open the presents when the first star could be seen. After xmas dinner we would go to midnight mass. Then xmas day was playing with the toys, swimming in the river ot our pool, and a big xmas lunch made up mostly of cold meat leftovers, prawns and, when I was 18, cold beer.
Boxing Day sales day is where you buy next year's presents for all occasions, also in case of a wedding, cheaper nicer xmas decorations, more luxurious underwear at cheaper prices, cheaper toys including very little ones for all your kid's rewards, or birthday party bags, bigger sized clothes for kids to grow into later, brand toy collectables, xmas food/nut baskets, Clothes, sleepwear , beach towels, all the top choccies and biccies in xmas tins, shapes and wraps, xmss card packs.... You can just pretty well set yourself up for the next year and a bit beyond.
Daybreak in Adelaide currently is 5.30am with sunset at 8.30pm. When I lived out in the country it was quite common to go and chop a tree from one of the dirt roads ridesides (steal a tree). The local council used to just get rid of the road side trees anyway. Some charity groups here in Australia also sell real trees. I don't mind paying the $100 Aussie dollars (which is the cost without the delivery cost included) if buying a real tree from a charity group. I went to carols by candlelight last Friday, where I go they always have a great fireworks display right at the end of it and a xmas parade earlier in the day before it (tons of lollies and gifts got thrown out to people during the xmas parade, the side walk was littered with candy). One year due to it being Summer the Carols by Candlelight fireworks caused a fire which the country fire service then had to put out (which all added to the entertainment lol). Most of us do a xmas lunch but I think probably 50% of us also do a xmas dinner (often 2 different celebrations on the day due to getting with different parts of the family).
Another key Boxing Day activity is to go to the movies. Usually to escape the heat, but also because its when the big summer releases come out so it's always busy. Also, definitely recommend White Wine In the Sun by Tim Michin. Is a beautiful song that really represents our Christmases.
![THIS WEEK IN AUSTRALIA [50]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UfWPkCTPPDA/mqdefault.jpg)
Most Aus schools have four breaks a year. The longest being summer of 6 weeks and the spring, autumn and winter breaks being 2 weeks long.
We only attend school for 40 weeks of the year with three 2 week breaks every 10 weeks and then the final term ends at the summer break of 6 weeks.
We had 6 weeks for summer, 4 weeks for the mid year break and a 1 week break in the middle of each semester.
South Australia has added a third week to the winter break. I don't understand why cos it rains here in July. Our summer break is over at end of January.
Ryan, check out the Aussie Christmas Carol "Six White Boomers". Also the absolutely brilliant Christmas ad for Telstra . This Christmas, each public telephone box has a line to Santa and the ad has a child helping one of Santa's reindeer get back to Santa by ringing him from the telephone box. It's definitely worth a look.
Schools have 4 terms with breaks in between. About 12 weeks off in total per year.
I think the penchant for Australians decorating with snow themes is slowly changing. Recently I saw tree decorations in a shop that are uniquely Australian. Australian birds and animals, tiny surfboards and little characters like cricket and tennis players and even a surf life saver.
Also in Australia at Christmas time we get nature's yummiest fruit in season. Mangoes, watermelon, cherries all the best stone fruit.
I think the classic christmas tree isn't going away anytime soon, but growing up in the 90s we use to decorate with that fake snow in a can crap that I haven't seen in like 15 years+.
That being said, the streetlight displays I see in Perth still have snow men and it doesn't even snow in Perth in winter... best we get is snow on the Stirling Ranges.
Ohhhh I absolutely LOVE having all those delicious summer fruits around Christmas time.
Äs a kids, all you care about are the presents.
As an adult, (speaking for myself, personally) all I care about is the food, mostly.
Don't get me wrong, I love the gifts, too. Though now I prefer to give, more than receive.
But yeah, can't beat all those yummy, delicious summer fruits at Christmas time. It's one of the highlights to my Christmas time now. 😁
We never did the snow thing and didn't know anyone else who did either.
No it’s not. Most people here still use and prefer the snow theme. It’s just a new thing some stores are trying to push but you see in stores that no one is buying the australiana theme and it sits on the shelf.
@@Beeannks
Most people?
Tell us where all these most people are?
And where do they purchase all of their snow themed products?
Some people are buying the Aussie themed products, though. And perhaps over time, the attraction to it will grow.
I've been taking with my elderly mother and my kids, and now my grandkids, to look at many different Christmas lawn displays every year for over 3 decades now.
And I can honestly say that snow themed stuff (aside from the odd "snowman") is truly becoming less and less common.
The most bizarre thing is shopping with Chrismas songs about snow and cold blaring from shops, while it is stinking hot outside.
There is a series of Australian Christmas carols, that have local themes. They refer to the hot winds, the bush and the local animals. They were written by Wheeler and James, and are beautiful. The most famous is called “Christmas Day”, and another one is “The Carol of the Birds”, which refers to boobooks and brolgas dancing.
Depends on where you’re. It’s not super hot everywhere in Australia at Christmas time. I had to wear a jumper at the shops today and right now it’s cold. So with heavy rain today and the cold it was nice at the shops with the Christmas music. Maybe up north it’s hot as it is there.
😂
Well I'm in Tasmania, the COLDEST state, and Christmas day 95% of the time is hot af lol. And yes I've had 45 Christmas's!
There's a great Australian christmas song called '6 white boomers' where Santa uses kangaroos instead of reindeer to find a joey kangaroo's mother, lots of fun! Bucko and Champs Christmas songs are my family's favourites haha.
Do the boomers go and give presents to all their tenants riding on the back of a kangaroo.
Boomers are biiiig male kangaroos. They draw Santa’s sleigh when he’s in Oz. Candace is too young to remember Rolf Harris singing 6 White Boomers.
I had a book like that Santa drove in Ute pulled by flying kangaroos
Ryan get the antibiotics as it could turn into pleurisy or pneumonia
17:19 17:19
Because Australia doesn't have Thanksgiving, Christmas tends to be 'the' large family get together event. Often with larger extended families there's a large meal with each set of grandparents. The celebration with the extended family both don't have to be on the day though one often is.
Yep, as kids grow up and get into their own relationships, it's not always easy for everyone to all get together on the one day.
Sometimes the day can be split between households, going to the g.f's/wife's parents house for lunch, then to the b.f's/husband's parents for dinner, or vice versa.
Or even if parents are split up and don't live together anymore, then the kids need to go to two households to spend time with both parents for Christmas.
But then in more recent years, some people just don't wanna be travelling around from house to house on Christmas Day. Especially if they have to travel a fairly long distance to get to the other relatives house.
So I've started noticing in more recent years, that more people are deciding to have one "Christmas day" with one household on Christmas eve, then another entire day with the other household on Christmas day. Or one day with one household on Christmas day, and the other "Christmas day" with another household on Boxing day (the day after Christmas, for those who don't know about Boxing day).
it's also a great way for those of us who tend to buy a lot of food just for one day, and then we can enjoy the leftovers the next day with even more family members and catch up.
Christmas on Boxing Day with one side was the way my family grew up. Or later once we moved to the outback. We drove down after the worst of the traffic had finished. When I married, we’d have either my family or quiet just-us on Christmas Day & go to hubby’s family on Boxing Day one year, then other way round the next year.
Santa doesn't have a sleigh in Australia, he drives a rusty holden ute.
This comment is underrated.
But, Americans can't pronounce "ute"😅😅@@Smokinjoewhite
Unless he's using his 6 White Boomers..he tends to switch it up every year or so.
😂
@@belindasmith9638hahahaha
'Nostalgic flashbacks'
As an Aussie, I personally love the family cricket game after lunch. Always so much fun ❤❤❤❤
The cricket and then the tennis in January as well, can't wait!!!
For several decades it has been a tradition in our family to play a friendly game of cricket either in the backyard or at the local park, after we've had Christmas lunch.
A great way to work off that huge meal we eat too, and make room for some more at dinner time LOL.
Never had a spider or any other living creature in a Christmas tree!!! What nonsense!
It’s been years since we’ve been able to light a candle. Most carols by candlelight’s sell small battery powered ‘candles’. Nine times out of ten santa comes in a firetruck.
It's not an Aussie Christmas without a game of backyard or beach cricket.
Fun Fact: Adelaide is the ONLY city that hosts a City Christmas Pageant! No other city does this. We have loads of amazing floats (approx 60), marching bands, clowns, dancers etc and Santa on his sleigh at the end, and it goes through the streets of the city. Literally thousands of people line the streets (over 300K in 2019!!), kids drawing with chalk on the sidewalk and we hope to god that it doesn't rain or that it isn't 40C! And I only found out this year that we are the only city that does this. How cool!!
Perth
Nope, we do Christmas pageants in Hobart, Tasmania!
Serial Killer Capital ,🤣
@@ServiceUnavailablehahaha!!! 😂 yup!
For Australian Christmas movies, I'd look at 'The Magic Pudding' as one for the kids. Big list of Australian Christmas songs: White Wine in the Sun, Aussie Jingle Bells, How to make Gravy, 6 White Boomers
White Wine in the Sun makes mea tear up, as does How to Make Gravy.
Both such beautiful songs.@@goodyxeroxx
The Colin Buchanan version of Jingle Bells which references the (now extinct) Holden Ute.
How to make Gravy by Paul Kelly for a Christmas song
I live in Australia. I am a 1st generation Aussie but my husband and my family come from europe (Poland and Croatia). Traditionally we celebrate christmas eve with lots of seafood for dinner. We exchange gifts from one another and then go to church. On Christmas morning we open our gifts from santa and then have a nice lunch outside. Boxing day is essentially a recovery day.
Hey Ryan, we don't have a huge summer break like Americans do, but we do have more "school holidays" during the year. We have four terms, they're usually around 10 weeks each, and then a 2 week break between each term -- with a six week break in summer (mid-Dec to the first week of Feb).
I love the holidays, I am on my year 10 holidays Rn.
@@Vegemite_Warriorme too, heading towards year 11 next year 😢
@@Pelfri0 don't sweat it m8.
What subjects are you doing next year?
@iminyourbathroom509 It's scary isn't it, but if my sister could do it this year so can I.
@@Vegemite_Warrior if your sister can then I can, then I'll be a role model for my younger siblings, gl!
We have battery powered candles that we use these days because of the bushfire danger, at the Carols by candlelight. A good one to look up is Carols in the Domain. This is in the Domain area of Sydney and is usually a televised event as they feature some great Aussie talent.
Carols by Candlelight at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl is just as good, especially since all the proceeds and donations go to Vision Australia that helps children who are blind and visually impaired.
That being said, I also miss the deafness telethon that used to be held every year on Channel 10 (previously known as the 0 network).
The best thing about both Carols events, is that we get to sit down with our loved ones and enjoy 2 special nights in front of the telly, singing Christmas carols together.
Especially as the kids start to grow up and we barely get to sit around and enjoy many family moments watching something together, as much as we did when they were little.
My daughter's friends are Muslim, and her friend says she a a great Muslim, with the best Christmas Tree in town. Her children go to a Christian School, because they don't appreciation wokeness.
The Australian school year is 40 weeks, broken into 4 equal "terms". That leaves 12 weeks for holidays, which are usually split into 6 weeks for Summer/Christmas (starting mid-December and finishing at the end of January), 2 weeks for Autumn/Easter (usually the weeks on either side of Easter Sunday), 2 week for Winter (in the middle of the year) and 2 weeks for Spring (end of September/start of October).
I used to get so jealous when I found out that for summer Americans get three months off but my mum told me that each season we get two weeks off so when it becomes that six weeks for summer vacation it all adds up in the end which made me feel a lot better
Every year on Christmas Eve the Fire Brigades around here load up their trucks and drive through every street with a Santa sitting up top. The Fireman stand up there and throw bags of lollies to all the kids, they have Christmas carols playing as they do it.
Pretty much every kid will run out and line the street as they hear the truck coming. We used to run to different streets to get as many bags as we could. :D
And Volunteers take donations for the Country Fire Authority 👍
wtf? this never happened to me nor have I ever heard of it! Im from QLD.
As they drove past, we'd always give the firemen a sixpack to share when their day was over. Living in a cul-de-sac we often got a second hit of lollies as they came back down the street lol
The firemen driving on Christmas Eve with lollies for the children is an iconic Christmas event.
In my parents' street on Christmas day this year, Santa turned up on a Harley and gave the children a little gift. I'm not sure which neighbour organised it, but it was lovely to see how happy the children were
Not something I ever saw (also from Qld) but a great tradition.
You’re a trooper Ryan. You looked like you were struggling with the bronchitis but you’re still pumping out the content for us. Good onya👍
The old RYAN needs to watch out for FLU this year as it will be very heavy in USA, as it is in Australia now..
I love our Aussie summer Christmas', beach, bird and beer :) It's great!!
An Australian tv series that shows really mainstream (working class) culture, I think, is “A Moody Christmas”. It is a 6 part series covering 6 years of a family whose surname is Moody. Almost entirely filmed in one backyard. Very Australian sense of humour.
Great show. One of the best comedy series this country has made.
It’s so good yep!! Great cast
One year with my grandparents we went outside and chopped a branch off a GUM TREE for the Christmas Tree. We decorated it like any other tree. :D
We do that every year
We used a Murray Pine, which is a native species.
We had a blue gum Xmas tree one year, it was from our property too so free 😊
About 65 years ago when we were living with our grandparent my sister & I went down the bush & brought home a small dead tree with several branches & painted it with white wash & stuck it in a large can of dirt wrapped in Xmas paper then decorated it with a bit of tinsel cotton wool balls & handmade coloured cardboard stars & we had a great happy Xmas
That’s much better than killing a whole tree in my opinion.
For the changing out the reindeer for kangaroos, there's a big christmas song about it in Australia. Lookup the song "Six white boomers".
For the boxing day, it's common with larger familys to have the boxing day test on the tv, while the family sits around, plays cards, and consumes left-overs. While the young-uns are out in the yard playing cricket themselves, catching up with extended family/cousins etc (This may be the only time of year you all get to catch up), the adults have a few drinks, everyone is in recovery mode, and folks will often drive home the next day.
Christmas day: family.
Boxing day: friends.
It's Christmas today. My parents, my husband, dog & I travelled 760km south to have Christmas with my sister and her family (all adults now 😢 and the most wonderful people ever) and their partners. We drove over to sister's around midday with a full cooler (esky), sis was busy in the kitchen making an array of beautiful food. Her husband, our brother-in-law (BIL) cooked a couple of pork roasts with crackling, ham and a turducken. It was served with crispy roast spuds, sweet potato casserole, peas and bean salad, baked brie & apple dish, home made cranberry sauce, spiced strawberries and cherries, gravy and bread rolls. Glorious spread.
Great range of home made desserts much later - to give lunch time to settle. Apple pie, raspberry, strawberry and chocolate tart, Eton Mess (strawberries soaked in sugar & orange liqueur, crushed meringues & whipped cream), and a home made icecream pudding (Kahlua, crushed almonds, chocolate & honeycomb) served with a choc-mocha sauce. Desserts are brought by the guests.
A mat that sprays water was set up for the dogs to play in, but they mostly lay in the hard plastic kiddies pool that is set up for them every summer.
The rest of us encouraged sis with Bellinis, as made in Harry's Bar in Venice - peach juice and Prosecco. Boys tried a range of previously untried beers. Much bubbly 🍾 was imbibed (except for the designated drivers - deso).
We sat outside on the covered deck all afternoon, the day was around 31ºC (about 88ºF) until early evening.
While waiting for the meat to cook, we gathered around the real Christmas tree 🎄 and handed out lot and lots of very special, thoughtful presents.
So Christmas in Australia is family, lots of food and drink and presents. It often involves water.
Used to live on a 6 acre property in the Adelaide hills. The guy next door planted pine trees along the boundary. Every Christmas we used to cut an overhanging branch from one of the trees so we could have a "tree" that reached the ceiling in the living room.
she forgot one tradition: On Boxing Day, the hot cross buns will be on sale for Easter.
True.
Lol so true. Then easter eggs few weeks later lol
🤣🤣🤣🤣
YESSSSSSSSSSS!!!
That used to be the way. I have seen them on sale in Coles since at least November this year.
I hope you feel better soon Ryan. Merry Christmas to you and your family.🎄🎄🎄
My kids used to put rolled oats out for the raindeer. When they woke, the birds already had attem, which looked like the reindeer ate them.
Prawns definitely go on the barbie, or just precooked with lemon and pepper. The Aussie tradition of being stopped anytime you drive on Christmas Day by a grumpy and hot cop for an RBT (random breath test for blood alcohol levels) wasn’t mentioned but it’s 100% Australian. So some poor sod has to stay sober all Christmas Day and drive the rest of us home. Some people also have long Christmas holidays. This year I’ll be off work from Friday the 22nd until Monday January 8th. Merry Christmas Ryan and family and get well soon. ❤️🩹
Watch Aussie jingle bells, it's bloody amazing
Yes it is soo good
Bloody love that song.
I heard it in Woolies the other day and it made me feel so proud to be a crazy Aussie LOL
The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is a big part of the Christmas - New Year sporting calendar in Australia. The race began in 1945, and continues today. It is 628 nautical miles/1163km of ocean racing starting on Sydney Harbour at 1pm on Boxing Day, 26th December, finishing at Constitution Dock in Hobart, anywhere from less than 48hrs up to 4 days later. The slowest time for the race was in 1945, with a time of 11 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes. The fastest time was 1 day, 9 hours, 15 minutes, 24 seconds. There have been controversies surrounding race tactics; deaths at sea because of horrendous weather conditions, etc, over the years. It is one of the most prestigious ocean races in the world with boats and crews from around the world taking part. It might be worth letting your fingers do the walking to find out more about this iconic Australian sporting event.
🙃🐨🇦🇺
And of course, the Boxing Day test match at the MCG. This year, it's Pakistan...but Boxing Day tests against England or India...or NZ or South Africa...are huge.
The weather conditions at around Bass Strait sort the ametures from the professionals
@@c8Lorraine1it do indeed... once they lose the shelter and protection of the mainland, all hell can, and often does, break loose.. they are definitely far hardier souls than I... they can have that all on their Pat Malone...😏
Shame that Channel 7, which was the advertised broadcaster for the Sydney to Hobart start, didn't bother to broadcast it, at least in regional areas. Instead, regional viewers got the test cricket on all three Channel 7 channels.
To be perfectly fair, most Aussies will only ever see the start of the Sydney to Hobat Yacht race, because they usually show it while televising the Boxing Day test
I always remember watching” Bondi Rescue on Christmas Day” and all the tourists are from cold climates and are absolutely loving the sun and sand as it’s so different. And as an Australian I would love to try the cold climate one day!
Yes, at least once I would love to try a white Christmas 🎄
Same! I get so curious about snow during Christmas. You see it all the time on the internet, movies, shows, etc. But never get to see it in real life
I can remember a cold snap at Christmas when I was little and it snowed on the nearby higher altitudes. I'll have to ask dad what year it was.
In Adelaide South Australia u know Christmas is approaching when the Christmas pageant is held with all the amazing pageant floats and performers and it’s always televised
Hey Ryan, thanks for getting through the video while you're feeling so ill, you did a great job. Now go get some antibiotics and rest up so you're feeling well for all the festivities coming up. Merry Christmas to you and your family from your Aussie family of viewers downunder!
Christmas is a completely different vibe in Australia. A real summer festival feel with lots of eating and drinking, family time, short or long breaks from work (depending on whether you want to use your annual leave entitlements) and we have quite a lot of public holidays throughout the summer too. Imagine the 4th of July but your tree is up. All the kids have finished school for the year, the beach is calling, cicadas are out, it's light till late etc. We are CELEBRATING for like 3 months.
As a small child I was always waiting for it to snow on Xmas day. It didn`t help that my parents would always say "maybe next Xmas it`ll snow". We lived on the NSW North coast.
That’s just mean😂😂😂
Your parents 😂 are funny buggers
Some parts of NSW have had snow on Christmas Day. Oberon has in the past. Tasmania occasionally will get snow on Christmas Day at cradle mountain. We’re forecast to have a cool day with heavy rain on Christmas Day where I am in NSW. I hate summer so am very happy to have a cold wet Christmas this year
They told me if I ate watermelon seeds ,that watermelons would grow out of my ears. Is it too late to sue them.
@@davexenos9196 😂😂😂
Oh, Merry Aussie Christmas Ryan! 👍🧑🎄🙃 Happy Holidays! 🏖️🌴🏂 (I get bronchitis too, take garlic, ginger, vitamin c, and keep dust and mould down!) We always have a big real, beautiful smelling, Pine Tree!🌲 I love the Carols by Candlelight, everyone sings!💡 Christmas day is for presents and feasting, twice, Boxing Day for rest and cricket!🦞🏏
A great Aussie Christmas movie is the Moody Christmas. Hilarious and really showcases what Christmas is like down under.
My family has always celebrated on Christmas Eve. My eldest nephew is now taking over the annual event so four generations now. It's our Danish grandfather who instigated this after immigrating here in the 1920's.
I used to have a great Christmas tradition with the kids where we used to go out in the bush and pick out a big gumtree branch and take it home and decorate it with all Australian themed stuff. Made the house smell great as well.
This lovely young lady has given an Australian Xmas a heavily South Australian influence and god bless her for that, the rest of Australia is getting as far away from snow and hot baked lunch/dinner and more prawns on the barbie and hit the beach if near by, I haven’t seen a can of ‘santa snow’ for 20 years. Merry Xmas to all and sundry.
Agree. Im in SA and yes snow is still a feature at xmas here though I myself this year decided not to have any decorations which feature it as I want to get away from that and go more Australian xmas.
Huh! I'm a south Aussie and we don't do the snow stuff and we have a wooden Santa's sleigh pulled by six white boomers - currently sitting on top of the fridge courtesy of the local men's shed. We usually steer towards summery Christmas themed stuff like Santa chilling at the beach or riding a surfboard and hybrid summer and Christmas decorations. Never had the fake snow either.
It really depends on you/your family. Some people like the traditional snow theme, some go for the more Aussie flavoured decor.
And the video did mention seafood and BBQ rather than hot roast? Although I do love my turkey and will always suffer the heat for it 😂
So not true. I’m in NSW and lived in WA and we very much do the hot turkey roast dinner. We have loads of fake snow cans at the shops that do sell out quickly so you have to buy them early . I live 20 minutes from many beaches and it’s mainly used by tourists on Christmas Day.
@@Beeannks Good for you, merry xmas
As a kid I used leave carrots out for the reindeers and beer for santa lol
I used to put out a glass of port or sherry and a slice of iced Christmas cake for Santa. My Grandad enjoyed a tipple of Port or sherry at night 😅
Boxing Day in this house is - all day cricket (Boxing Day test) and help yourself to leftovers, coz this Nan is in recovery 😁🎅🤶🎁🎄
My kids were taught (by my Dad), to sit on the roof of the house with champagne/wine corks on Christmas Eve. He didn't want Santa's reindeer to poo on his roof so the kids needed to be ready for when they landed. The kids loved it and still talk about it to their kids!!
That's true, we don't get a festive break in winter. There's a couple weeks school holidays for families with kids, but if not, and as well, for adults winter is for working. Especially in outdoor jobs like construction, because summer is hot and winters aren't snowbound, it's the most productive time of the year.
There's a swag of long weekends in spring, which is what everyone looks forward to.
In Victoria, most of our long weekends (the weekend + a public holiday) all tend to fall in the first half of the year.
By the second half of the year, we only get 3 public holidays. Queen's/King's birthday in June, AFL Grand Final eve in Sept, and Melbourne Cup in Nov.
Not even sure if all of Vic gets the public holiday for Melbourne Cup, either, or if it's just a Melbourne day off.
And thankfully we were given that public holiday back for Sept (which was taken away by Jeff Kennet back in the 90's), or else we'd only have the 2 public hols in the last half of the year.
So by the time Christmas rolls around, many of us are hanging out for those 2-4 weeks off from Christmas onwards.
If you're lucky enough to even get the time off over Christmas and New Years, that is. After all, many poor sods are still working hard through those times, so the rest of us can enjoy that time off.
Ah, but we all get the three holiday within the week, except poor essential & retail workers.
She’s a bit behind the times as things have changed in regards to the way Aussies celebrate Christmas nowadays, especially with her faux winter fire and tree.
We now use more Australian style decorations that suit our climate. From using local trees to driftwood, sending cards that have Aussie themes, like Santa surfing, swimming, barbecuing etc, there’s now less snow and winter style decorations. We definitely do have Kangaroos pulling a sleigh for Santa dressed in swimwear.
And seafood is now very common for Christmas lunch instead of a traditional English hot roast.
she's from SA where I am too and we here still often feature snow theme at xmas. I think we are behind the other states when it comes to some things.
@@tanyabrown9839 yep, it’s starting to change around the country which is good as it’s always been part of our tradition to follow the British style of Christmas with American influences. It’s crazy that we still use decorations that reflect a cold winter theme with snowmen, reindeer etc etc, it really makes no sense.
But now I think many Aussies are starting to embrace and celebrate the fact we have a hot Christmas.
My families not religious so we have a driftwood Xmas tree with a beach theme of seashells, starfish, clay eucalyptus leaves, wooden hearts etc. especially fitting as a lot of Aussies spend Christmas at the beach.
Celebrating with all the wintery things in an Aussie Christmas only adds to the magic :)
The woman making the video is from SA, and that state has a significant German influence, which might be the reason for the "real" trees. My Sydney family always had a plastic tree.
Yes, multicultural families often do a small Christmas for the sake of their children, but a Muslim acquaintance will be going to the office on Dec 27-29 so her Christian colleagues don't have to.
The Sydney Fish Markets is open for 36 hours straight, from 5am 23/12 to 5pm 24/12.
My partner and I don't have kids or nearby family, so we don't do much on Xmas day, but we have friends over on Boxing Day to drink and eat and relax.
I didnt think we even had anywhere to get real xmas trees lol NSW here
I'm in Melbourne and we have a real Christmas tree! It's possible anywhere and just personal preference.
Pretty much everyone that I know in SA has always used a fake tree. I do know there are a few tree farms up in the Hills, although I never met anyone who used them. Two of the big events that happen around here at Christmas would be the Riverbank (Brewery) lights, and the Lobethal lights. You really need to Google these to get a good understanding of them.
I think the extra break for the American education system may not be ideal. The stats are showing Americans might need to spend a little bit of extra time on education. 😉
It has nothing to do with spending more time, thats a big misconception of the americans. In germany we can maybe do everything they do in their jobs in 60-80 hours per week in just 35 hours because of beeing more efficient and also more relaxed because we have the time to relax and are not totally stressed out.
And for schools its quite the same, i think americans spend way more hours in school every day and still learn way less.
@@beldin2987So it's plain to see you're not Australian, this comment went straight over your head!
@@beldin2987To be fair, the Americans do have to devote half their school time to training their kids to hide under their desks 🤣(active shooter drills)
@@aflaz171
Why does @beldin2987 have to be an Aussie to be able to respond to @trentoncrisp comment?
@beldin2987 is simply comparing the hours that U.S kids spend physically being in school classes, supposedly learning, to the time spent in classrooms for German kids. And whether time spent physically being in a classroom learning makes any sort of difference or not.
@trentoncrisp never actually said anything about Aussie kids being smarter than U.S kids, or anything like that.
So there's no reason why anyone besides an Aussie is allowed to throw their 2 cents worth in on the discussion.
@@beldin2987 See the wink emoji? That means I was joking. As for German efficiency. You use a lot of words to say very little in your comment 😉
Carols by Candlelight is held at the Music Bowl in Melbournes Botanical Gardens on Christmas Eve, with battery operated candles, all our music artists perform with an orchestra & choir, & traditionally all the proceeds go to the Royal Institute for the Blind, to raise & train guide dogs to assist the visually impaired. It starts while it's still daylight & finishes when Santa makes an appearance just after midnight.
WON'T SOMEONE MENTION THE SALADS!?
I haven’t watched the full video yet but Aussie Christmas Eve is amazing❤
You literally get to see lights and sometimes even go into ppls front yards! It’s crazy ik
Our kids get 6-8 weeks in Dec-Jan, depending on what grade they're in and whether it's a public or private school. They also get about 10 days at Easter, 2 weeks in Jun-Jul and 2 weeks in Sep-Oct. Plenty of time off 😊 We had real trees a few times as kids in the 70s/80s, but most years we'd just drag out the plastic tree and put up the same boring old decorations 😅
Our plastic one was up REALLY, REALLY early this year.
(Like a year early……)
American here with a huge family. We celebrate the twelve days of Christmas beginning on Christmas Eve at the oldest family member’s house that night. Christmas Day is celebrated at home with our individual families. Then through the 6th of January we go to each other’s homes with the gifts from that home given. These gifts are small and useful, maybe just a set of measuring cups or a pair of socks. The final day is Dollar Santa Day where we play Dirty Santa with hilarious gifts.
Mate, don’t feel sorry for the break time at school here, as well the 6 week summer break, there are also 3 other 2 week breaks in April July and October.
Plus we have more public holidays than any other country 😄
In Germany it is Weihnachten (Christmas eve) for presents, and some of Europe, presents are still given on December 6th, St Nicklaus day. Breaks in NZ are similar to Aussie: for primary & secondary schools (pre-University), 6 weeks over summer, with a two week break between each term, roughly ten weeks/term. Breaks are roughly quarterly at Easter, June/July and September. Tertiary education (Uni) are usually two 12-15 week semesters with a two week break in the middle of the semester, a mid year break, and an eight to ten week break over summer.
I had Christmas in Hamburg Germany one year and what freaked me out was they had real candles on the Christmas tree and the ice cream was outside on the verandah😂😂
The best Australian christmas movie Die Hard!
What about Bad Santa? 🤣
Has anyone mentioned Christmas in July?
Some of us do all the traditional cold climate Christmas food and have a gathering to have that Christmas food in winter. So we get Christmas, twice!
When my children were small be used to hunt a "feral tree". We lived on a 25 acre property just outside of Canberra. There are lots of plantations of Pinus Radiata around the ACT, and we had lots of seedlings coming up on our property. As she said, before my husband chopped it down, it would be well doused in flyspray. And then it would be carted up the hill to our house.
Growing up in Canberra, about a week before Christmas Day, Dad and Mum would take us on a car trip to see all the decorated trees around Canberra. The highlight of this would be the one at the US Embassy. This was before they built a surrounding fence when you could drive right up to the tree.
My family has two Christmases. Christmas Eve is with my sister-in-law's family (they are from El Salvador), and then Christmas Day with my parents' families - usually lunch with my Dad's family and dinner with my mum's family.
when my kids were little we would leave out chrissy cake or bickies for santa. when they went to bed id go in and a take a bight out of the cake then id grab my fox terrier, Patch and id pluck some white hairs out of his back and sprinkle them on the cake. the kids were amazed "SANTA LEFT REAL WHISKERS ON THE CAKE" hahahaha 😎
🎄Yes, in Germany we celebrate (mainly) on christmas eve.
To keep the impatient children busy, there are special kids shows on TV the whole day. 😆
Please get well soon, Ryan.
I don‘t like to see you suffer.❤️
Ryan pretty much all of us in Middle& Eastern Europe celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve- so in the evening before you guys celebrate. It used to be a tradition that the Christmas tree was put up on Christmas Eve and the kids weren’t allowed to see it, it’s still common in many areas.
In Austria and some other countries we also don’t have Santa, the Christkind comes instead (basically baby Jesus).
It’s always really strange to see US movies where people celebrate Christmas in their pyjamas… it has a completely different vibe, very casual. Christmas is quite „classical“ here, you dress up and celebrate together. What you eat for dinner is also an important topic and most families have their own traditions, they’ll eat the same special meal every year. There are many different food traditions based on regions. I‘d almost say it’s more like your thanksgiving than your Christmas.
Kids usually have to wait until dinner is over to open their presents but that’s part of the excitement. You try to catch a look during the day when the living room area is a prohibited place, seeing the tree with the lights and the presents underneath when you are finally allowed in as a kid is part of why Christmas is special.
Almost every scout group near me in Melbourne sells Christmas trees! Scouts in aus is for people of all genders ☺️
All hahahaha
What???? 'All genders'??? What are you talking about??
Look out, @emilyc2748, the anti-everything goons are sniffing around like lame hyena's 😂
@@tammymcleod4504 there is no "boy's scout" or "girl's scout", it's just scouts.
@@Ni-boo thanks. I had no clue, given I dont have kids and all the nieces and nephews never went anyways.
I managed to raise my son without the need for Santa. Don’t get me wrong, we still shared presents under the tree and summertime meals, however we still included our religious beliefs and traditions. My son , now an adult, said he loved the way we did Christmas and intends to do the same with his family
There are public schools and private schools. Summer holidays go for 6-8 weeks and there is 3 other breaks throughout the year ranging from 2 to 3 weeks.
What's Christmas like? Somewhere between warm and bloody hot. It's summer. There's no snow here during Christmas.
If you are really feeling overwhelmed by all this Xmas hoopla, you could always try what I did .
Being totally over it, all this you must buy stuff that people don’t want because it is a certain time of year, I was heading off to Finland prior to my trip into Russia. Sightseeing in Finland is fun, got the train up to the Arctic Circle. Hopped off at Rovanemi, Santa Claus’s hometown. Went out to check out his establishment, sat on his knee, had photo taken (which they print off as postcards). Wrote home to the family…see, he really exists! (Tongue in cheek). Then I went into town and ate his reindeer for lunch. Then I sent the postcards notifying Xmas was over . Santa wasn’t coming any more as I had eaten his reindeer. And that was the end of Xmas bs in our household. So liberating!
I wonder how many people realise Christmas originally was a celebration of the birth of Jesus. I have come across some who genuinely didn’t know
@@c8Lorraine1 😄 You need to look up the origins of xmas! It's an ancient Winter Solstice celebration that was Christianised. WAY older than Christianity.
We LOVE having Christmas and a long summer break at the same time. There are 3 other 2 week holidays throughout the year.
European cultures Christmas eve is the main celebration. My grandparent immigrated to Grand Rapids MI. They celebrated on Christmas Eve as they were from Latvia.
same in germany
24th eve - suffering through diner with parents and food I never liked and then presents
25/26 after that are just 2 attached holidays after that
or for someone (un) lucky like me to be born on 25th dec another weird holiday with all the rest of the family visiting and much more bad dinner left overs...
mfg
Olli
Dad spends all Boxing Day flicking the tv between cricket and the yacht race (drinking beer and eating prawns) while the kids take all the money they got for Christmas from family and go to the sales with mum.
I always found Christmas movies weird, from my childhood it was mostly american movies with the sterotypical snow, etc. Off the top of my head I cannot think of a single Aussie christmas movie.
Something I don't know if the US has, but where grew up in Aus, we actually had "Christmas in July" parties. Not an actual christmas with gifts, etc. But since it was winter we had some fun pretending to have a cold christmas xD fake snow and all.
Christmas brekkie or lunch has been a staple. The evening has always just been for friends to get together in my experience and is never really a big event, just a small platter of food.
Hope you all have a good day :3
Yes, to all of this.
US/UK Christmas movies always feel a little alien and I cannot think of a single Aussie one.
Our weird ‘Christmas in July’ thing which is really just a way for us all to think about what it would be like to have a cold Christmas.
Christmas food is always weighted heavily towards the first half of the day, by the time it hits 4-5pm everyone is drunk or asleep or we’ll on their way to one of those options 😂
And I hope YOU have a good day 😊
I've never worked out why it is not Christmas in June! (June being 6 months away from December)
Actually quite a few Auzzie Xmas movies a lot are a bit corny .A sunburnt Christmas . Christmas on the Farm .& a Bush Christmas are few that readily come to mind ,A bush Christmas is a remake of a 1947 movie of the same name & was Nicole Kidmans first feature role.
@@georgescott6967 very good point, no idea… but ‘Christmas in June’ is a great song by AJR so you’re def not the only one to think that
I think it's because July usually has lower temperatures than June, and the main point is eating all those cold weather foods that are traditional in a northern hemisphere Christmas diner. @georgescott6967
The bit about the spiders in the real tree made me LOL. Especially the thought of them taking up residence in the pressies!!🤣 We've always had a fake tree cos I like to put it up at the start of December. The real ones are dead, and dropping needles everywhere, by Xmas day if you do that! 😂
Boxing Day is our equivalent of your Black Friday.
It’s 73 at night not mid day lol
Usually true but this week is low/mid 20s so it wasn't wrong
It was 20c 68f during the day where I live today and that was the warmest it got. Depends on where you’re. Australia is a big country and not hot everywhere.
We have the Christmas Pudding made each year
Merry Christmas to everyone , please STAY SAFE ...
Merry Christmas to you too 😊
You haven't seen an Aussie Xmas till you see Santa come in surfing, forget the sleigh. Iconic. Big at Bondi Beach.
My mum is one of 9 siblings, and I am one of 29 grandchildren (not to mention 27 great-grandchildren, plus 2 great-great-grandchildren), so I can indeed confirm Christmas is rather expensive 😂
Swedish Tomte. Also known as the Nisse in Norway and Denmark. I first heard about the Tomte from my grandma around Christmas time. It’s a little creature from Scandinavian folklore that is usually associated around the winter solstice and Christmas.
Hey Ryan, the temperature check you did was at 1am sydney time, a cooler part of the day 😂. The top temperature in my part of Sydney today was 95F/35C. Hottest day so far this month was 108F/42C.
An Australian Christmas carol:
…. (Boomers = kangaroos… not our elders) 😊
Six white boomers, Snow White boomers
Racing Santa Clause across the blazing sun…
The 2 largest Carols by Candleight (Sydney and Melbourne) are telecast on Channel 7 and Channel 9 (and these days streamed) - one of them is always on Christmas Eve, and I think the other is normally the Satirday before Christmas. There might be some restriction on streaming them live internationally, but I'd imagine you can stream repeats the following day (and most of it ends up on youtube, even if they don't have the entire event).
We lived next door to some Jehovah's Witness (I think) when I was growing up. They absolutely wouldn't celevrate Christmas and the kids weren't happy. I can also relate to her point about the European Christmas - we would have the bulk of the celebration (and presents around the tree) on Christmas Eve (Santa would deliver stuff under the tree while we were eating dinner which seemed to suspiciously coincide with one of the parents remembering they had to close an open window in the lounge room). Christmas Day might have still had a lot of Christmas food (Ham, seafood, salads, cold-cuts, peaches, cherries, nuts, gingerbread etc) but it was more a day of doing nothing for us.
Re the kangroos, there is a Christmas Carol (or Song) "Six White Boomers" - that is about Santa's sleigh being towed by skippies rather than reindeer.
Boxing day used to have *massive* sales (literally like $10 fridges if you were lucky) but they got dangerously crowded and were scaled back (I think inthe 90s) because you'd literally get a mad rush into the stores to get the super cheap stuff (which was typically a very limited stock of only 1 or 2 items).
Boxing Day Test FTW....
When I was a kid we had a Lebanese family that lived a few doors up from us.
Whether they were Christian or not and whether they celebrated Christmas, I'm not entirely sure. I just hung around with one of the girls briefly when I was about 8 or 9 (she was about a yr older) when we first moved to the area, then we just went our separate ways over time.
But the kids certainly didn't wake up to a bunch of presents, that's for sure. So my friend and her younger brother used to come over to our house from Boxing day onwards and would play with some of mine and my brothers toys that we got.
I kinda felt pretty bad for them. Not sure how much it may have bothered them, though. Wasn't something kids would really talk about decades ago.
As for Boxing day sales in stores the day after Christmas, it's no different to the Black Friday sales in the U.S - which have now also crept into Australia and our retailers have decided to cash in on that U.S tradition as well.
And yes, Boxing day test at the G (MCG = Melbourne Cricket Ground) is a huge deal in my family. Has been for generations.
Kinda like NFL is in the U.S on Thanksgiving Day.
I like that our main School holidays are in the Christmas/New Year break. Then the kids started school at the beginning of the year-in late January. Makes more sense than having a school "year" that went across 2 calendar years.
Aussie schools might be similar to New Zealand where you get six weeks off in summer from a week before Christmas until Feb. Then you have 4 terms at school. Each term is split by a two week break, totalling another six weeks. So schools get 12 weeks off per year, plus public holidays.
in Aus it also depends on if you go to a public or private school. In High school I was at a private school and got 10 weeks over the xmas holiday. Private primary schools generally get 8 weeks and public schools only get 6 weeks.
There is an old xmas song called 'six white boomers' about santa using roos to pull his sleigh.
My aunt and uncle always have a gum tree branch as their Xmas tree
Christmas time in Tasmania the most southern state of Australia is simply amazing, not so hot as the mainland and sometimes does snow up at mt Wellington...
I remember when I lived in Port Huon, it actually snowed on Christmas Day it was awesome!
We had a slug problem one year. It was a really really wet summer and something kept eating the wrapping paper on the gifts under the tree at night and leaving slug trails everywhere. We eventually found them living up in the angel.
Many European cultures do the gift-giving and celebration on Christmas Eve. I believe that's common in Northern Europe.
She totally missed the cold meats and salad Christmas which is also very popular in Australia.
We do the cold meats and a BBQ with various salads, followed by a decorated pavlova, home-made trifle (heavy on the sherry for the adults one😅), home-made tiramisu and a trifle made with chocolate sponge roll, Bailey's Irish cream, custard and cream❤
It’s very dependent on schools (public v private). My kids’ are currently on 8 weeks summer/Christmas holidays (they finished on 30 November). Then they get 2 weeks holiday between each of the other school terms during the year, so another 6 weeks. So their school year looks like this, starting at the end of January:
Term 1 - 10 weeks
2 weeks holiday
Term 2 - 10 weeks
2 weeks holiday
Term 3 - 10 weeks
2 weeks holiday
Term 4 - 8 weeks
8 weeks xmas/summer holidays
Plus they get some public holidays and student free days within those terms.
I recommend watching bondi rescue Christmas episodes!! I also remember when i was little my preschool gave us some sort of crumbs with glitter, that you sprinkle onto your lawn, calling reindeer food! 😂
I live in Sydney. The city is under a blanket of smoke from bushfires right now. 🙁
Yeah, that's usually a sign that Christmas is near
As an Aussie, I've never understood Australians trying to replicate Christmas in Northern countries, i.e., winter decorations and lunch. What's wrong with a summery Christmas. My family's Christmas lunch is a fancy barbecue - much more sensible. Santa should be wearing red board shorts, thongs (as in flip-flops for non-Australians), and tank top!!
When you checked Sydney weather , did you take into account that it was like 5am in the morning and 73deg ?
Boxing day used to traditionally be a day of donating. So when you got new clothes or toys for Christmas, you would box up some of your older toys and clothes to donate to charity.
I was told boxing day was when the wealthy boxed up the leftovers and gave them to the poor/servents.
That was what it was originally.
NOW, it's just enjoying the leftovers from Christmas day, kids still enjoying their presents and dad/hubby watching the Boxing day test match on the telly.
Well, that's what it has long been in my family. 😁
When I was a kid I was real confused about how boxing(the sport) ended up with their own day, after Christmas no less.
Love that innocence of childhood.@@Ni-boo
With regards to the carols by candlelight, a couple of things about the candles, 1 is that these are generally held in the middle of a sporting oval or something like that, minimising the risk of bushfire. And 2 is that for more than 10 years now battery operated "candles" have increasingly become the preferred choice for the event.
I’m from Uruguay, so a lot of things are similar to Australia here (southern hemisphere).
The school year is quite different to yours, here it begins in march, then you have a winter break for 2 weeks in july, and ends in december. Meaning our summer break is from december til beginning of march (more than 2 months). The advantage of this, is that the whole school year is fully contained within the calendar year.
Also christmas here is mainly celebrated the 24th at night, waiting till midnight to actually celebrate christmas and open the gifts. Remember it’s summer, so it is usually hot and the sun sets around 9pm, also kids are on vacations so they stay up fairly easy. Then the 25th is usually just a free day to wake up late, and don’t do much and spend with the family.
Extra fun fact: Uruguay being a secular country, names Dec 25th as the “Family Day”. So catholic people can celebrate christmas as usual, but those like me who are not, can basically do the same celebration but with no religion connotations.
You should look for a southern hemisphere facts video, it is more interesting and different to american life than it might seem.
My parents were Polish. Big meal was xmas eve, open the presents when the first star could be seen. After xmas dinner we would go to midnight mass. Then xmas day was playing with the toys, swimming in the river ot our pool, and a big xmas lunch made up mostly of cold meat leftovers, prawns and, when I was 18, cold beer.
Boxing Day sales day is where you buy next year's presents for all occasions, also in case of a wedding, cheaper nicer xmas decorations, more luxurious underwear at cheaper prices, cheaper toys including very little ones for all your kid's rewards, or birthday party bags, bigger sized clothes for kids to grow into later, brand toy collectables, xmas food/nut baskets,
Clothes, sleepwear , beach towels, all the top choccies and biccies in xmas tins, shapes and wraps, xmss card packs.... You can just pretty well set yourself up for the next year and a bit beyond.
Daybreak in Adelaide currently is 5.30am with sunset at 8.30pm. When I lived out in the country it was quite common to go and chop a tree from one of the dirt roads ridesides (steal a tree). The local council used to just get rid of the road side trees anyway. Some charity groups here in Australia also sell real trees. I don't mind paying the $100 Aussie dollars (which is the cost without the delivery cost included) if buying a real tree from a charity group.
I went to carols by candlelight last Friday, where I go they always have a great fireworks display right at the end of it and a xmas parade earlier in the day before it (tons of lollies and gifts got thrown out to people during the xmas parade, the side walk was littered with candy). One year due to it being Summer the Carols by Candlelight fireworks caused a fire which the country fire service then had to put out (which all added to the entertainment lol).
Most of us do a xmas lunch but I think probably 50% of us also do a xmas dinner (often 2 different celebrations on the day due to getting with different parts of the family).
Another key Boxing Day activity is to go to the movies. Usually to escape the heat, but also because its when the big summer releases come out so it's always busy.
Also, definitely recommend White Wine In the Sun by Tim Michin. Is a beautiful song that really represents our Christmases.