I've always wanted to spend Christmas ignoring the fact that it’s Christmas. Every year in the UK, as soon as October arrives – BANG - Christmas is the theme at every shopping centre, on every radio station and on every TV channel. There’s NO ESCAPE from festive cheer being shoved in your face and by the time Christmas actually rolls around I’m completely over it. A Christmas without any of that commercial rubbish being forced upon me would be perfect, right? So why exactly did I spend the run up to Christmas feeling like I was missing out on that cold, festive cinnamon-y cheer that comes hand in hand with December?
I’m putting it down to weather. My mental state depends a lot on the weather (weird but true) and is a large part of why I left the UK. December in Sydney was unusually “cold” (22 degrees – that’s summer to us Brits) and rainy, with forecasts telling us right up until Christmas Eve that the big day would be soggy. Not what you want to hear when you’ve saved up for eight months and left everything you know and love in exchange for a new sunshiney life and beautiful Christmas on the beach. Couple that with the fact that there is nothing traditionally festive about Australia during the run up to Christmas and what you’ve got is a grumpy expat on the other side of the world from their family, with an empty fridge and a long weekend ahead of them which will be spent watching re-runs of 80s classics such as Love Boat and I Dream of Jeannie because there’s nothing else to do. Not ideal. Not the dream.
As it turns out, the weather gods were good to us and Christmas day was brilliant. Myself and a group of friends ferried ourselves across the harbour to Shelley Beach in Manly for a day of swimming, bbq-ing and general festivities… along with hundreds of others. The gorgeous weather coupled with good friends and good food meant that everyone was in high spirits and the day played out exactly as we had all dreamt it would. We couldn’t have really asked for anything more!
On reflection, I still haven’t quite figured out quite how I feel about the whole Australian Christmas thing, purely because it didn’t feel like Christmas in the slightest. On Christmas morning I woke up alone, I saw no family members, had no Christmas dinner, no presents and no decorations. Then when the day was over I went back home alone, slapped on near enough a whole bottle of aftersun and collapsed into bed hoping I wouldn’t wake up bright red. It couldn’t have been more different.
Not that it was all a bad experience of course. I had a lot of fun, but whether I’d want to spend Christmas without family or friends again is another question. I missed having people around at home and I missed the M&S and Waitrose food - maybe if I could bring both of those things over here it’d be the perfect scenario!
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