CHRISTMAS IN THE HEAT

Most people in the world don’t associate hot weather and preparing for summer holidays with Christmas. Australians definitely do. Australians are “down under”, opposite to the majority of the world’s population in the northern hemisphere, where Christmas is associated with snow. Everything is different there, even the water flows done the plughole in the opposite direction.

The excitement of the Olympic Games had barely passed when it was time to start thinking about Christmas. The stores took down the Olympic posters and decorations only to replace them with Christmas decorations and merchandise.

November and December, late spring and early summer, are associated not only with the coming Christmas season, but the end of the school year. Christmas preparations not only herald the happiness and excitement of Christmas, but the winding down for the students and workers for the big summer holidays. Apart from the frantic activity in the retail trade, everything else is slowing down.

End of year examinations, graduations, senior and junior formals (called “proms” in the US), planning summer holidays, Christmas shopping and preparations, these all coincide with the end of the calendar year. The whole year has been spent building up to this big finish.

Sure signs of the coming soon of Christmas are not only the constant advertising from the retail industry for their biggest money making season of the year, but the Melbourne Cup, start of the cricket and tennis season and unfortunately some times bushfires.

The stores are crowded with shoppers trying to get just the right gifts, getting more and more frantic as the time gets shorter. The heat makes the rushing, anxious people irritable. Public transport is crowded with shoppers, holiday makers, others heading for the beach.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are spent as in most places with visits to church, visiting family and friends or hosting a large gathering. Most women are worrying about the preparation of enough food for the guests.

These days there is a variety of foods eaten at Christmas. Some still risk heat-stroke cooking the full traditional roasts, chicken, turkey, ham and pork and of course the Christmas puddings have been prepared weeks before. Cold roast meats and salads are the choice of many. Barbeques are very popular with Australians at any time. Seafood is becoming more and more popular as Christmas fare.

Outdoor eating or taking all the food to the beach is many families' way of celebrating Christmas.

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