I mean, everyone knows that in January it’s hot in Australia, and in July it’s cold there.
But do Australians call it “winter” in January and “summer” in July? Or does just “winter” imply hot weather and beaches, and “summer” implies winter, eh, i mean, snow sports and wool socks.
And given that, most of the population lives in northern hemisphere, is there a body of dad jokes and culture tropes related to the fact that “we’re different”, or is it just too cringe and boring. (I realize both could be true on this one.)
An Aussie friend from a forum I was on ages ago posted a video of his family’s Christmas tree, and it blew my mind that they decorated it with snowmen and snowflakes and shit. They had a fire going, a big ass turkey or some such (baby emu?) on the table. Whole freaking classic Christmas affair.
Why? Why do you do this? If it flipped somehow, and Christmas now came during summer here in the US, I’d be decorating the tree with flip flops (thongs?) and sunglasses, and having mojitos with a light salad for dinner lol
Yeah, now I have my own family and we do our own Christmas, it’s shorts, thongs, BBQ, seafood and beer.
When I was a kid we lived in Florida briefly.* On Christmas, we went swimming, did a cookout, and went fishing. It was awesome. Looked it up, it was 82f/27c that day. 2 months later, in February, we were in North Carolina, where there was snow on the ground, and huge chunks of ice floating in the lake at the campground we were staying at. The lake had a giant slide in it, about 50 feet/15 meters. Right in the middle of the lake. Me and my brother could not resist. Ended up swimming there on my birthday. Haha. There’s no point to this story, hot Christmas just made me think of it.
*At times like this, I never know if I should explain things like Florida. On the one hand, I’m being presumptuous if I assume someone on the other side of the planet has a working knowledge of one of our 50+ subnational jurisdictions, on the other I’m acting like I have to explain Florida to someone who has access to a super US centric internet… Blegh.
I’m in Florida, and Christmas does get a tree but nobody expects snow, lol. But it’s our cool season, still winter. What bothers me more is the harvest festivals in fall. Nothing much grows here in summer, in fall we are just ramping up the garden, so in that way it’s more like spring in other cooler places.
I’ve never seen that in my whole life.
A roast for dinner sure, but never a fucking fireplace on.
And lunch has always been cold seafood while sitting out in the sun smashing beers.
If it matters, they’re super wealthy, so it might be a class thing where they do it up for holidays
White Wine in the Sun is a Christmas song by Australian comedian Tim Minchin.
Oz xmas is often sun, pool and beach oriented, with family big lunches.
Exactly like this at every house across Australia. /s